Have to say I was really bummed when Prince died - though dedicating a post to that seemed to cement this forum as less a celebration of musical things and more something death-obsessed. I trolled around looking for a word that would best describe such a state and I think that "morbid" truly is the most accurate English word, though ran across "thanatopsis" as well, which invariably points to the famous poem of the same name by William Cullen Bryant, ca. 1811. Not sure if it's an actual word in common usage, but it means a meditation or view (perspective?) on death. The poem is a real corker, however so much has been written of and about it I will leave it to the interested reader to Google to explore (short summary: You, like everything else, gonna die. And you'll be in good company once you do, as everyone all dead that's ever been before now. So go live, because you gonna die).
Ok so no more Morbid posts for a bit - today instead I offer the almost prayer-like, understated yet hopeful melancholia of Mark Oliver Everett, aka Eels... a song that fits my mood perfectly today (ok, most days),
The choice is mine for making
a better road ahead
the road that I've been taking,
headed for a dead-end,
but it's not too late to turn around
In the final moments
I hope that I know that I tried
to do best I could
To stop defeating my own self
and stop repeating yesterday.
I can't keep defeating myself,
I can't keep repeating,
the mistakes of my youth.
