carry that weight
I wanted to open this post with John Lennon's last words to Paul McCartney, which were something along the lines of "think of me". It's not my place to say, I wasn't there.
I've been watching "Get Back", the restored footage of the Beatles in the studio in their last year together. In that time they wrote two records: "Let It Be" and "Abbey Road". I haven't finished it yet, I don't know if they get to Abbey Road or not. I hope they do because I really like the medley at the end of that album, in particular the track "Carry That Weight". The Beatles, when they were good, they were the best. There's something about "Carry That Weight", some sort of arcane ritual inscribed into it. It's a sonic masterwork. There's magic to the words that Paul sings, how the group sings them together, how the melodies and harmonies around it all tie the whole song into this thing that's greater than the sum of its parts. It's haunting. And I can't reinforce that enough. "Carry That Weight", for all of its triumph, is a haunting track. It's just a fact of life. You are going to carry that weight. You are going to carry that weight a long time. The whole time you're alive, probably, and more Weight is going to be added with each day you spend alive. Your time is going to run out and at the end of it you will be carrying that Weight.
The Weight of what, exactly?
It's up to you, of course.
But you're gonna carry it anyways.
Sometimes you will forget that it is there. Your shoulders will get so used to the gravity pushing them down that slouching becomes natural. And you'll keep walking, because that's all we can do, anyways. Sometimes maybe you stop and you talk to another crooked carrier. Maybe you swap bags. Maybe one day you think you can free yourself of the burden of luggage, so you drop all your Weight onto them and run. But your knees have become bowed and broken from the years of constantly carrying, and you can't run fast enough, and you might fall. You can lay there all day if you want. The Weight comes back. It never goes away. Why was I burdened with all this Weight? How much longer?
A long time, probably.
You know I found out Ringo married an 18 year old when he was 29. Marion, I think her name was, but I know her nickname was Mo. They were dating when she was just 15, anyways, so the whole thing is fucked up and gross. She died at 49. I think by the time she died her and Ringo got divorced. I'm not entirely sure, but I hope she took that rich cantankerous fuck for most of his cash. "Oh well, so John was a wife beater, and Paul chested on Linda constantly, and Ringo fucked a 16 year old, but at least George-" give me a break. They were all British blue collar boys from the 40s. Women to them were just more weight to carry. So was the Clap, apparently. On a European tour it plagued all four of them so badly they had to bring a doctor with them.
That's who God gave us as the biggest Rockstars on planet Earth, that's who history elected the Fab Four. And you know the more I've learned about them the more I can't shake that it was always going to be like this, and it's better that it's like this than it is worse. The wheel always turns. We're all carrying this weight. I can't be bothered about some dead British guys own moral code and how it compares to mine. The distorted ethics of a manchild superstar, that shit dies with them.
I don't know if this post has much of a point. I didn't really make this with any endgame in mind.
You carry the weight until you don't.