Taillights Fade - Buffalo Tom (1992)

Like one of my selected Essential Eleven Discs To Pack (for an imagined exile on a desert island), Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes CD, this song dates from one of the darkest and most intense periods of my life.

Buffalo Tom’s Let Me Come Over album was released in 1992, and I first heard it when I moved to Melbourne at the beginning of 1993.

Amazon describes this song as “heart-on-sleeve epic” (an apt tag for many of my favourite songs) and Allmusic files this album under a genre called “Long Walk”. It’s not a term I’ve ever heard, but I suppose it’s apt for the darkness, melancholy and loneliness the long walk through life can be. The lyrics tell most of the story of anguish and torment, and singer Bill Janovitz’s voice conveys the desperation like he has lived every minute of it.

The result is sheer, bloody catharsis.

I love the simple poetry of the image of tail lights fading. As a fit for my selection criteria for Desert Island listening, it has to forever top my list.
Sister can you hear me now
The ringing in your ears
I’m down on the ground
My luck’s been dry for years

I’m lost in the dark
And I feel like a dinosaur
Broken face and broken hands
I’m a broken man

I’ve hit the wall
I’m about to fall
But I’m closing in on it

I feel so weak
On a losing streak
Watch my taillights fade to black

I read a thing about this girl
She was a hermit in her world
Her story was much like mine
She could be my valentine

And although we’ve never met
I won’t forget her yet
She cut herself off from her past
Now she’s alone at last

I feel so sick
Lost love’s last licks
But I’m closing down on it

I feel so weak
On a losing streak
Watch my taillights
fade to black

Lost my life in cheap wine
Now it’s quiet time
Cappy Dick nor Jesus Christ
Could not help my fate

But I’m underneath a gun
I’m singing about my past
Had myself a wonderful thing
But I could not make it last

I’ve hit the wall
I’m about to fall
But I’m closing in on it
I feel so small
Underneath it all
Watch my taillights fade to black
Watch my taillights fade
Watch my taillights fade
Watch my taillights fade

MUSIC FOR MY WORLD

I'm no Lester Bangs. To tell you the truth, I've never read him. I have no musical ability - by that I mean, I play no instrument. But I possess a serious love of music. I just can't imagine life without it.

Much as I love drums and guitars, it don't mean a thing if I don't dig the lyrics. (Funnily enough, for a writer). And the idea of expressing to you what I love about certain pieces of popular music is both a challenge, and a powerful motivator for me.

I'm also a list maker from way back (only child and all that), and there's an obsessive fascination with reducing life's excess to the essentials: could I compile one CD to cover all necessary moods and occasions, one CD that would be the one and only one I'd ever need to listen to.

Of course, it's a futile exercise, in practice. Even though most of my musical interests are historical (not much newer than about 1995), I could never get by with just one CD of music.

But it's fun imagining.

ON SELECTION CRITERIA

I was thinking about whether I could define any of the selection criteria for my favourite songs, and I realised one thing they all have in common, is their perceived appropriateness to be played at my funeral.

Or, to put it another way, to be played as the last song I'll hear.

This reveals a couple of aspects to my personality even I wasn't really aware of until I put it down in words.