John Cougar

“Well, our hearts,

beat like thunder.

I don’t know why

they don’t explode.”

When I was young, my angry father used to say, “Boy! What‘s the matter with you? You got tunes in your head, or something?”

”You’ve got your hands

in my back-pockets,

Sam Cooke’s singin’

on the radio.”

The moments of my life play back to the songs of the day, and the times.

”You say that I’m the boy,

who can make it all come true.

But I’m tellin’ ’ya that I don’t know,

if I know what to do.”

Poetry was invented because stringing rhyming words together made it easier for people to remember them, and to remember a tale, or a legend.

”Say, it’s all right,

hold tight,

we could stay out late,

we could run around all night.

It’s all right,

hold tight,

Well it’s time to go home,

and I ain’t even done with the night.”

The night we met, my wife picked me up in a bar. I was shy. She was not... not at all.

”Well I don’t know

no new come-ons.

No, I don’t know

no smooth lines.”

She was hot, and a little bit older... and a tad tipsy for courage. It was so easy for her.

”I feel the heat

of your frustration.

I know it’s burning you up

deep down inside.”

Putting those poetic words to music made it easier yet for people to remember them,

and you could dance to the words... close... with your hands in my back-pockets.

”You say that I’m the boy,

who could make it all come true.

But I’m tellin’ you that I don’t know,

if I know what to do.”

I guess the “Old Man” was right all along about them tunes in my head, thank goodness.

”Say it’s all right.

Hold tight.

We could stay out late, or

we could run around all night.

All right,

hold tight.

Well it’s time to go home

and I ain’t even done with the night.”

Twenty-five years later those hands still dance in my back-pockets, and that tune is still in my head.