I was born without ears. That’s weird, right? Or, should I say, that’s w-ear-d? You know? That was a joke. It was play on words. More like play on worst, am I right? Of course I am right. Anyway, I don’t have ears. Never had ‘em.
Even though I have no ears, I love music. Actually, I don’t love music, because of obvious reasons. I love the lyrics. One of my favourite bands is Pink Floyd. One of my friends wrote me that I should check them out. They are amazing. I guess. I wouldn’t know. But their lyrics are incredible. I remember it vividly. The note said “HEY YOU SHOULD GOOGLE PINK FLUID THERE AMAZING”. I’m deaf, but at least I’m not an idiot. My friend’s an idiot, most of the time. But I’m glad he showed me Pink Fluid. You don’t wanna know what came up first when I googled that. I have SafeSearch on ever since. Thankfully Google told me I probably meant Pink Floyd and so that is what I got.
Relevant side story: my friend, Ferdi (his parents thought Freddy was already taken), got a tattoo of that band. He told his artist he wanted a Pink Fluid tattoo and the artist drew a big flying pig like on the Animals record and a nice big banner that ended up saying “Pig Fluid”. I can’t know for sure cause I can’t hear, but I think I laughed the loudest anyone has ever laughed when I saw that. But I guess I didn’t have the last laugh.
I immediately loved Pink Floyd. The lyrics, at least. They appealed to me. It was like I could hear them singing in my head. But I couldn’t. My head was devoid of sound. But there was beauty in the words. There was leverage. I bought all their LPs only to find out there were no lyric sheets included. I looked them up on the Internet instead. I’d Google “Pink Floyd lyrics to whatever song is cool” and I felt lucky. I was extremely lucky. I bumped into Wish You Were Here. The feeling I got when I read those lines was indescribable. Literally. I don’t know the words to describe that feeling. Somewhere in between ‘really good’ and ‘life-altering’.
It dawned on me. I wish you were here. I wish that you were here. Right here. This was so concrete yet so abstract at the same time. The song is obviously about Syd Barrett. Wikipedia told me that, and it makes sense. But that song, in tune with the entire album, made me realise there is a greater good. I wish you were here. It is a higher level of desire. It’s not obtainable. An unreachable level of wants. A feeling that is so strong, you can’t need it. You can only wish it. When I read those words, that feeling came to me.
I absolutely hated it. The feeling, of course, not the words. It is the most horrible feeling you can have. That is what’s so great about Pink Floyd, and this song. To combine the worst feeling in the world with the most graceful description of it was a truly artistic accomplishment. I needed this. I needed this close to me. Forever. I needed this on my body.
And that’s how I ended up with an tattoo of two men shaking hands on my back. One man is burning up in flames. On top of it the words “the same old fears” beamed from my skin. Underneath the image it said “wish you were ears”. I fucking hate my tattoo artist.
Voorlopig het meest straight-forward dat ik al geschreven heb voor Boktor. Ik ben er best tevreden van.
