(the stories behind the songs of unknown songwriters who, even if they died, wouldn’t sell very many c.d.’s)

I’m not sure how to talk about this one without it sounding like a harrowing yet inspirational episode of E.R., so I’ll just try to stick to the facts:

Fact 1:  Two and a half years ago, while lifting weights at the gym, I felt a strange pain in my neck as if each vertebrae were played low to high like a xylophone, brrrring!  I started to get a headache so I asked for a ride home from a friend.  The next week I went about my life—preparing for my daughter’s birthday party, setting up a movie screen and a projector, flipping burgers for guests.  I seemed to be extra tired though, my neck still hurt, and even though I was gobbling ibuprofen, my headache wouldn’t go away.

Fact 2:  A full week later, I finally decided to go get an MRI at Ballard Swedish Hospital.  A doctor came and informed me I had a “berry aneurysm” and needed brain surgery right away.  Half-way through his little talk, he started sounding like one of the grown-ups from Charlie Brown—all low, garbled and far away.  (This wasn’t because I had brain damage—pure animal fear had affected my hearing).  The Charlie Brown voice went on to tell me that the aneurysm had been bleeding slowly in my brain for a solid week—blood in my cerebral spinal fluid was what was giving me the headache.

            “Excuse me doctor, do you think I could have a Xanax please?”

Fact 3:  They loaded me into an ambulance and took me across town to another hospital and gave me drugs to help me not freak out.  The next morning, Dr. Johnny Delashaw (fighter pilot vibe) cut my skull open,  and put a paper clip looking thing on the artery where the “berry” was growing on the underside of my brain.  Seconds later, the aneurysm popped of its own accord.  Without that paper clip, I would have been room temperature very soon.

Fact 4:  In the follow-up, the doctors casually mentioned that they don’t see people like me very often.  I asked them what they meant.  “Alive” they said.  “We don’t see people walk around for a week with a bleeding aneurysm and live to tell about it…oh, by the way, you have a titanium paper-clip thingy in your brain, plus three plates and multiple screws in your skull.”

So—those are the facts, but that’s not what the song is about.  The song is about realizations that I had in the next couple months, here’s a list:

Realization 1:  Ninety percent of what I worry about is absolute bullshit and not worth my time-starting with what anyone thinks about me or whether or not I’m “successful.”

Realization 2:  The only things that seem to have any real currency are love and friendship.  My children are my number one incentive to still be here.

Realization 3:  Each moment is as sacred and ordinary as the next.  Putting up gates around time and saying these moments are more sacred, memorable or special is ludicrous—every moment we are here has equal potential for the sacred or the mundane, it is just our noticing that changes.

I am fine now—slightly more prone to ordinary, non-life threatening headaches, and I have a small dent above my left eye—that’s it.  I am no more likely to have another aneurysm than you are.  I am grateful to be alive, when I remember to be.

Musically, it’s a jaunty pop song with a bit of a Motown Chorus.  (I’m probably the only person who thinks there’s any Motown in there).  I like Bruce’s violin hook and Dan’s drums kick ass.  It’s about as “up with people” as we get.

Incidentally, the picture on the album cover is my actual MRI, post operation.  The paper clip is in there somewhere, you just can’t see it.

David Russell, Winter 2017