However, to me there should be more to the story, I want to know what happened in the beginning, so I decided that this will be my task for the night - to write a short story about the song. So here is my short story, followed by the lyrics and then the song for you to listen to (don't think you will like the song (or the lyrics) Mom and Aunty Norma) but here goes:-
"I LOVED HIM BUT HE USED MY LOVE UP"
Janni was a painfully shy 19 year old. He should have been finishing off at school, he was not stupid, he had the marks and the ability but he had no option now but to work, full time, at the local diner. He was the only child of Monica and never knew his father. The only answer he got from his mother, when he once had a chance to ask her about his father was “I loved him but he used my love up”. This did not explain where his father was now, why he’d “up’ed and left” (when Janni was a year old), or what he did for a living. It became an unspoken between mother and son. Janni loved his mother (she was all he had) but she was fragile. She drank too much and smoked non-stop and never left their caravan since her parents died. It was now up to him to work so that they could survive (and she could drink her cheap wine and smoke her hand-rolled cigarettes).
Janni dropped out of school during June last year after his grandparents died. They had died in an horrific fire at the caravan park where they lived, across the road from each other. Janni was at school, Monica had tried to save them but could not. Six people lost their lives that day and many more their homes. Although his home was untouched he had lost everything in that fire, Grandma Esther and Grandpa Joe, his youth, his education, the only two stable people in his life. He was on his own with Monica. She was now his responsibility. He had an uncle who was living with his family, on a small farm in the coldest part of Canada (somewhere close to Nova Scotia). Uncle Albert had come back to Iowa after the fire and wanted Janni to move to Canada and live with him, his wife and two young cousins. No mention was made of Monica and as much as he wanted to go and leave his sad life behind, he could not do it. He had to care for Monica, he loved her, she was his mother after all.
Music was the one light in his life. Music, Monica and an old battered guitar. In his mind he hoped the guitar had belonged to his father. He made up stories in his head about songs that his father would have written and sung to Monica (he was certain his dad loved Dylan, The Doors and perhaps The Eagles). He really hoped that he did not like country and western stuff. Monica did and she played the same Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton music, all day, every day. He did not want to ask his mother about the guitar or the music his father played in case the guitar had belonged to someone else and it would spoil everything in his head if his father shared Monica’s love of cheesy country music. Another unspoken between them.
Janni taught himself to play the guitar from an old manual which he found in a pile of cast off’s in the rubbish at the caravan park. He picked up some amazing stuff on the dump. People would move on and leave the stuff that they could not fit into their backpacks behind. He never needed to buy books, clothes (he had his pick). However, he would never wear second hand shoes. He had to wear a uniform at the diner, so there was no worry there. He did not need much.
With his first pay check he invested in a small iPod from the second hand computer store. He treated himself to new earphones (he was fussy about things like clean ears, nails and feet). The earphones were permanently in his ears and the $25 dollars he spent on the iPod was his best investment ever. He was able to download his favourite songs at the diner (one of the few perks of his job). The other perk was Lisa.
Lisa, with the bright blue eyes, who did not know that he existed. Lisa who never made eye contact with him (heavens knows what he would have done, if she did) in all the 76 days that she had been coming into the diner. He knew every outfit in her wardrobe, every magazine she bought, how she wiped her mouth after finishing the third cup of her “bottomless cup of black filter coffee” (no sugar). All he wanted her to do was meet his eyes, but she never did.
He had thought constantly of following her out of the diner one day. Just to see where she lived, what she did with the rest of her day, watch her walk, see where she shopped (she looked like she shopped a lot), just to observe and see talking on her phone. But he did not have the courage (and he thought that it would be creepy) and what if she saw him and never came back to the diner? He lived for the 45 minutes she spent at the diner every morning (except weekends). Lisa was the reason that he would never swap shifts with anyone else, Lisa was the reason he came to work everyday. He wrote songs for Lisa (many songs), mostly happy songs. Once Monica had gone to bed at night he played the old battered guitar and sang his songs to Lisa (and to his father).
He was completely in love with her and she did not know or care.
THE END
Lyrics of the song:-
Lisa picks her coffee up
And takes a small sip from her cup
She flashes with her blue eyes
Over at the counter
Where the Spanish boys are talking loud
And hiking up their trousers proud
She feels herself expiring
Like the ticket on her windscreen
While Janni sits there all alone
All alone with his Walkman on
And he taps the rhythm gently
With his fingers on the table
And he's trying not to sing along
Sing along to his favourite song
He doesn't want to be play like that
He just wants to make her eyes see
That he can make her body tremble
He's sure she'd make his fingers tingle
Every time they touched her skin
He just wants to be with her
He just wants to lay down next to her
He just wants to go deeper
Deeper than any boy has been
Then she pads her lips with a serviette
Christ knows why they're never wet
And anyway he knows
She'd be back again tomorrow
And there's one thing wrong with the afternoon
It always comes around too soon
He sees her slip her magazine away
Walk over to the door
But he knows how to keep his cool
And he knows how to make it
He can stop himself from falling
But he has had to learn to fake it
Anyway, she's made today
A better day than yesterday
At least he feels alive today
And he could do the same for her
If he could make her eyes see
That he can make her body tremble
He's sure she'd make his fingers tingle
Every time they touched her skin
He just wants to be with her
He just wants to lay down next to her
He just wants to go deeper
Deeper than any boy has been
He knows how to keep his cool
And he knows how to make it
He can stop himself from falling
But he has had to learn to fake it
Anyway, she's made today
A better day than yesterday
At least he feels alive
And he could do the same for her
If he could make her eyes see
that he can make her body tremble
He's sure she'd make his fingers tingle
Every time they touched her skin
And he just wants to be with her
He just wants to lay down next to her
He just wants to go deeper
Deeper than any boy has been
Anyway, she's made today
A better day than yesterday
At least he feels alive today
And he could do the same for her
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