The Movie of Your Life

Album: : John Wesley Harding, The Name Above the Title, 1991

Best Track: "The World (And All Its Problems)"

Lasting Memory: Over the years, I've advised several friends and family members that they needed to start living like they were the stars of the movies of their lives. It was only this past Wednesday that I realized I had stolen this truly cool bit of pop psychology from John Wesley Harding.

I have no idea whether Harding appropriated the ideas and lyrics for "The Movie of Your Life" from another source, but it is well past time that I give him credit for what I've been spouting.

Should you want to do some spouting of your own, here are the lyrics

In the movie of your life
They'll get some real jerk to be you
Edited so he can act
Cast because of his TVQ
In the movie of your life
You'll be less famous than he is
That's a strange turn of events
You'll be a cameo amongst the rushes

And you're learning all the lines
Though it was you who said them in the first place
Since then someone wrote them down
To pay for his new beach space
There's all these things you can't recall
And things you know you didn't say
But in the move of your life
The truth just flirts and runs away

[Chorus]
And it's so plain to me
You're happy with this parody
But in a glittering instant you hold the light so we can see
That your joke's become your reality

All your tricks so limp and tame
You said you were a stage magician
But it's only moths in light
Heaven burnt out in collision
You thought it was your life story
It's only seats that they're booking
The truth won't get a look-in

[Chorus]

Everyone knows that you're divine so
we await your resurrection
And they say that you'll be just fine
After you dry out on the critical clothesline

And you know it's all made up
How come your face has ceased to be you?
All your doubts and greatest fears
They will be confirmed at the preview
Celluloid has shaped the day
And put the cat amongst the coughers
Now you're waiting for the next big offer

[Chorus]

Other appropriable conceits featured on The Name Above the Title are "The People's Drug," which recounts the fruitless quest for an elixir that will make you happy just like everybody else, and "The World (And All It's Problems)," which is a blanket explanation-cum-poor excuse for why you're not happy just like everybody else.

Don't think about any of this stuff to long and too hard, though. If you do, you'll still be the star in the movie of your life, but the film will be The Lost Weekend, like it is for the protagonist of "The Person You Are" who declares

I slam my glass down on the bar
And my problems they hit the floor so gracefully
I don't know where I parked the car
But that's ok, tonight I'm on the town without me
Tonight it's just me and my evil twin
The one who slips one more drink in
The one who slips away, when I start sinking

Related to none of this, Harding and his backing band, The Good Liars, close this album with an excellent cover of one of all my all-time favorite songs. Here's the original, performed by the inimitable Tommy James and the Shondells.

Up Next: Ed Haynes, Sings Ed Haynes, 1989