A different take on an interdimensional song.

One of the magical, mystical things about songs is that they often lend themselves to individual interpretation. Most of the best songs are like that. You can read your own definition into the words and wind it around your own life. For me, Billy Idol's "White Wedding" transports me back in time, along a timeline of my life, and conveys mental imagery that was certainly never intended in the original penning and recording of the song.

You can divide your life into eras if you pay enough attention to the timeline. There are definitive changeover periods which divide the major people and events of the past from those of the future. Sometimes there is a simple way to measure the change, graduation from high school or college, for example. At other times, the change is more dramatic and unexpected and it all too often comes against our will.

Anyone with a six-pack of beer or a bag of marbles knows that even over the shortest period of time, relationships undergo dramatic and unforseen changes. If you take that over a period of two decades, or even longer, you often find that either the changes and evolutions become more predictable as you grow closer, or the diametrical occurs, and the thundercloud invokes its power to remove the brakes and send you spiralling into an abyss. Sometimes you want the abyss. The abyss becomes everything. According to some theories, love and pain are opposites, because hate is the emotion of escape. To fall in love with the pain itself can either destroy you, or make you invincible, because then nothing really hurts you except the removal of the cause of both the love and the pain.

Hey little sister who's the only one

The pain is usually not present at the start, for then we would avoid it like the plague. Purposely going into a situation that we read ahead of time as being one wrought with pain is rare. On the other hand, as the spiral of life takes us, often the darker nature of our selves and the world around us play flag football with fate. As our emotional involvement with another person becomes deeper, we unearth more of what makes that person who they are, and the closer we become the more familiar we become with their darker elements. Casual acquaintances exchange pleasantries at the water cooler. Soulmates wrench each other's hearts because all must eventually be revealed. There is nothing you can conceal from your twin soul. Artists are especially susceptible to these kinds of things. Its this strange muse thing you can find documented in artists throughout history, everyone from Beethoven to Dali. Most people can walk away from their soulmate with a few knife wounds to the chest, but artists cease to function when they release the source of their inspiration.

In retrospect, many elements of the past look silly in the present tense. Her nickname was "little sister" because of the weird bond they had and because she was three years his junior. Twenty years ago that age disparity was huge. Now it has become little more than a hiccup across the board when people born around the time they met are approaching legal drinking age.

It was always a nice day to start again. Most relationships don't have a pause button, but this one did. It was always easy to stop when things got too close. People walk away when the intensity starts to burn down the walls of their inner sanctum. Months or years could pass, and then there was some "catching up" and the play button could be pushed again. No harm. No foul.

Hey little sister what have you done

Dropping off the radar is a neat little trick you can practice at home. There are always people you'd rather avoid, and they eventually wander off and find something better to do. Then there are other reasons for dropping off the radar. When you devour yourself and start losing your grip on your dreams and the essential things that make you who you are, there is a natural desire to go into hiding. People would rather not be seen by those they love and respect when they hit rock bottom. They could use the support, but there are other angels who rise to the occasion when a support system is needed. Those in whose eyes we always want to appear strong and able need to be put on the back burner. When we find the path back we seek them out again. There is always a jewel in the back room no matter how much dust and dirt collect in the antechambers of our lives.

It is always better when you don't try to convince other people that their decisions are wrong simply because you don't feel those decisions are in your best interests. That is a very sad song to sing, and at the most base level our relationships with people are rooted in our respect for them. That respect extends to the decisions they make, especially when they are certain those decisions are ones they must make. Walking away is usually harder than standing and staking out a fight, but that old adage about loving something and setting it free has a life of its own. You cannot control the flow of love. You can only let it take its natural course, or else you risk destroying it from its foundations upwards.

It's a nice day to start again.

You can always start again, when the footing is more solid and the rockslides are less likely to bury you. Passion builds itself to levels. Not just physical passion, but the emotional passion that occurs when two people stand in the same room together looking into each other's eyes and resisting every instinct and desire that they have. Words are suffocated in the maelstrom and one either walks away or lets the passion carry them. When both resist the desire, then the passion builds for years and it becomes impossible to stand side by side and keep the power at bay. The surface of a clear, calm lake hides the storm below the surface, but for how long?

There is nothin' fair in this world
There is nothin' safe in this world
And there's nothin' sure in this world
And there's nothin' pure in this world
Look for something left in this world
Start again

No matter how many things you watch wash away in your life, lost to personal history and the world of memories, there is always at least one more tank of gas left in you. You can never go back again, but often the past has a different position in the future. You get used to the fact that life isn't "fair" in the way it frequently denies us the opportunities we feel we deserve. We deserve nothing. That much becomes clear with time. The best things aren't the safe things. You can easily get caught in a run down between second and third base. You look for whatever is left and you steer yourself towards the light. At the center of it all, we travel the road alone and embrace the love and friendship we find along the way. Purpose in life is up to the individual interpretation and misery arises when we allow others to determine what we are meant to do in this short lifespan. Pain only becomes misery when we don't fall in love with it, or at least accept it as one of the natural causes that conspire with life, the leading cause of death in this existence we have.

Hope is part of the package. We openly hope for things like fame and fortune and a little piece of happiness. Then there are the things we cling to inside, sometimes hoping against hope and putting all our chips on one turn of the roulette wheel. We fear for the lives of those we have lost touch with, and those we know are in trouble. There might be one last chip we keep safely tucked away for just such a time. We miss what is no longer there, but we are haunted by the possibilities. Sometimes things work in cycles. Sometimes the sign post tells us something, and other times it rises up from the deep with its own ominous warnings of what may come to pass. We face the trials, and we start again. We're never quite safe from the past until it forgets to acknowledge the possibilities of the future. You can escape anything, except when it cuts deeply into the soul and demands that you remember. That is the nature of belief, because you can never really forget the things that make you who you are. The puzzle of your life makes very little sense without the pieces that are already in place.

Who did you sell yourself to?
Who did you sell your soul to?
It's a nice day to start again.

Lyrics sample from lyrics copyright 1982, Billy Idol
Originally released on the album Billy Idol
Alliance/Chrysalis Records

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.