way back when...

i was a stranger in my own skin
i spent most of my days
shut in my room
in my isolation chamber
lost in a world of sound
i felt safe there
with my records
and posters
with my rock'n'roll fantasies
trouser press magazines
and music books
it was another world i'd escape to
'cause the real world sucked
you see
school had never treated me very well
i was too full of questions
and the system didn't like questions
i also had this name
an albatross 'round my scrawny neck
since first grade
it was always what made me feel distant from the rest
i dreaded the first day of class
when role call would come to a grinding halt
on the letter N
some poor teacher stammering or stuttering
to get it out
"saylem norhoolah?"
"where are you from now son?"
i don't know why it was so hard on me
i just wanted to blend right in
with the others
even though by the time i got to middle school
that's the last thing i wanted
i thought they were all sheep
the kinks "i'm not like everybody else"
could've been my theme song then
i despised the lot of 'em
with their ____ (insert terrible '70s band here)
and _____
heavy metal guitar solos
all getting ready to assimilate
and fit right in
que up in line
did their homework
followed rules
never asked why?
just went right along with it all
el paso in the seventies was lost in classic rock hell
i don't know why i gravitated to a different sensibility
but it always seemed to me that watching some long haired geezer
wank off on a guitar
was just about as exciting as watching paint dry
i've never been interested in the mechanics of musicianship
chops bored me
still do
hard rock guitar solos
who cares? get a real job!
but i when i was a kid
i was surrounded by people with the opposite taste as me
and as far as i was concerned
it was war

i still feel that way
it's funny how those outrageous feelings of youth
can last a lifetime