Keep the Faith
Corrupt Furor
Pause.
Right there, do you see it? It’s everywhere out there. In that mass of hot flesh, in that screaming mob over to the left, in the face of everyone kid out there. Do you recognize it? Of course you do now, you know the feeling. While you’re up here, bathed in white light and dripping with a mixture of sweat and God knows what else, they’re all down there. They’re all but screaming out your name, sending your lyrics pulsing into the night like the fire that licks at your heels. Remember yet?
No? Let me go on.
While we’re paused in the middle of a set, look right. See him? The crowd loves him. You love him. He loves his guitar. His fingers are close to bleeding from the friction against those guitar strings. His head is throbbing from the head banging, but still he marches on, pours his heart into every song because he knows what it means to need a savior. Look right. He, too, loves the guitar. Loves the crowd. Crowd loves him, even jokes about his hair. No one can sing and play at the same time like that man; he doesn’t know what it means to half-ass something. Behind you? Back there’s a man behind dark sunglasses, behind an instrument that shakes and rattles under the quivering wood of his drumsticks. He’s beating fuck out of those drums, hands flying and heart wide open. They love him, too.
Am I forgetting someone?
Oh yes, right behind in a pocket of unlit stage is the very being you might as well share a heart with. You can almost feel the metal under his fingers, the beat of a heart chained up because there’s no where else to go. You love him. Honest to God, you love him. Crowd loves him. Everyone loves him. Think he can see it? Can he even feel the love? No. But he’s still here; still strumming away. Isn’t that called blind faith? Isn’t he strong, to love without being loved? Heroic, even, some might say.
But let’s go back. A year, two years?
Back when there was no love. Hard concept to imagine now, but I swear I’m telling you the truth that once…once there was no love. You, you of all people know this; you still don’t see the support, the whole-hearted believing. Back then, it wasn’t like now. When you stood on stage, you were scared to breathe, scared to sing. Looking out over the crowd, you saw only nightmares, only haunted skulls wondering who the choked up idiot on stage was, holding a microphone in a hand shaking from the alcohol and drugs setting fire to the nerves. And then you learned to sing from your heart, from the very organ you thought you couldn’t feel. Remember what happened next? Is this next part something your mind subconsciously erased?
Dear God, I hope not.
Some caught on. You had followers from the beginning: a few brave souls who found magic in the crappy microphone and speaker-mutilated whining guitars and screaming vocals. Things grew. Grew like some cancerous disease, those who were touched couldn’t be freed. Hooked for life, some might say. Maybe you believed in this blind love, this adoration like you’d never seen before, but it didn’t show. No, instead of putting into your music more now that you had a fan base, you alienated your crowd with bottles, cups, joints.
We could all see it. You could see it.
How your hands would shake, how your eyes would roll. How you’d stutter when you spoke, and fall down face first on the pavement. You thought you found love; people were happy for you, even while they looked down their noses at you. They thought perhaps this new found love for someone would reverse the effects of touring. Boy, were they wrong. Don’t deny it; you sank. From a deep ditch you sank to a valley, and from there you sank below the deepest part of the ocean. Fans lost faith. People lost faith. But you had him so it didn’t matter. Eyes closed, you stumbled through the roughest times of your life, denying every second. But you woke up. Asleep you were alone to drown in your dreams, but did you notice that when you woke up you were surrounded?
Really, you did. We were so proud. We who were still here.
Because before the awakening, you were alone. Previous fans had left. The parking lot was empty, only those as fucked up as you could stand you. But then, when you decided to pick yourself up, dust yourself off…things changed. We believed in the music again. We believed in the band. We believed the man again. Not everyone came back, some were too distraught by your less than graceful fall to hold your hand when you rose, but you gained some fans who thought you a hero for making it through. We, the people who knew you only from the lyrics spewing from you mouth like your soul was vomiting, thought you were a hero. Ironic?
A hero composed of broken bottles, bloody flesh
The fucked up man who thought he could drink and smoke his way through the pain was a hero in our eyes. And you were a hero because you did make it through. You saved yourself, and in doing so, you save others. But when you became too popular, some turned away again. This chapter of the band was ‘Deceit’, because the very fans who adored you for being yourselves now hated you because everyone loved you. I hesitate to say you cared at all, though. The music mattered. The band mattered. Your fans mattered, and you let them know. But still some hated. Still some couldn’t see the glory in you.
Our faith means little now…do you believe in yourself?
We doubted it. Even after your fall from grace and the rise to fame, we weren’t sure you knew you were supposed to believe in yourself. Fans are one thing, because you’re nothing if you don’t believe in yourself. I mean this sincerely. Because while you screamed and cried and bled with the angels, we stood tall. It was all we could do because there was no turning back. We weren’t about to back down and follow society along like a fucking puppy on a leash. We waited for you to reclaim you halo of light on stage. I think we’re still waiting. You’re up there, but are you really, wholeheartedly up there? You believe in the fans a little too much and yourself not quite enough.
Let’s return now, to this day and age.
Do you see the faith in their eyes? In their agape mouths? No, but you feel it. There never was a lack of faith, there was always people pushing. They called you hero, set you atop a podium that you tried so desperately to get off of. They picked you bloody, mangled corpse up off the ground when you crashed, raised you on the wings of angels. The number of people pushing you fluctuated, dipped to near nil and soared to thousands, millions. You had true fans in your friends, your family; it was tough for those who saw only a burnt out star. But never did your true fans really doubt you. Never did they, collectively, turn away. Not your true fans. Never. We love you, we need you to love yourself. We have faith in you, we need you to have faith in yourself. Can you do that? For us?
Bleed. Fuck. Fight.
It was all okay, we always forgave. It’s human nature to forgive. Scars healed, body ridded itself of a poison you injected into your veins. And while we call you angel, called you hero, and allowed you the chance to make a mistake [or twenty], you don’t seem to have woken up to the love. You play the perfect part. Scream on stage, act like the gentlemen off stage, praise your fans, support their beliefs. Are you empty inside? Is this all a play, a writer’s nasty joke to get you to act your way through the day? Perhaps. Perhaps, though, it’s real. Is there the possibility that you do love yourself?
Hero. Angel. God-given savior.
You may bleed. You may scream. You may feel pain. You may glorify this pain in songs we’ll forever sing. You may cry. You may fall. But you may never be alone again.
You may be human, my angel.
Play
Right there, do you see it? It’s everywhere out there. In that mass of hot flesh, in that screaming mob over to the left, in the face of everyone kid out there. Do you recognize it? Of course you do now, you know the feeling. While you’re up here, bathed in white light and dripping with a mixture of sweat and God knows what else, they’re all down there. They’re all but screaming out your name, sending your lyrics pulsing into the night like the fire that licks at your heels. Remember yet?
No? Let me go on.
While we’re paused in the middle of a set, look right. See him? The crowd loves him. You love him. He loves his guitar. His fingers are close to bleeding from the friction against those guitar strings. His head is throbbing from the head banging, but still he marches on, pours his heart into every song because he knows what it means to need a savior. Look right. He, too, loves the guitar. Loves the crowd. Crowd loves him, even jokes about his hair. No one can sing and play at the same time like that man; he doesn’t know what it means to half-ass something. Behind you? Back there’s a man behind dark sunglasses, behind an instrument that shakes and rattles under the quivering wood of his drumsticks. He’s beating fuck out of those drums, hands flying and heart wide open. They love him, too.
Am I forgetting someone?
Oh yes, right behind in a pocket of unlit stage is the very being you might as well share a heart with. You can almost feel the metal under his fingers, the beat of a heart chained up because there’s no where else to go. You love him. Honest to God, you love him. Crowd loves him. Everyone loves him. Think he can see it? Can he even feel the love? No. But he’s still here; still strumming away. Isn’t that called blind faith? Isn’t he strong, to love without being loved? Heroic, even, some might say.
But let’s go back. A year, two years?
Back when there was no love. Hard concept to imagine now, but I swear I’m telling you the truth that once…once there was no love. You, you of all people know this; you still don’t see the support, the whole-hearted believing. Back then, it wasn’t like now. When you stood on stage, you were scared to breathe, scared to sing. Looking out over the crowd, you saw only nightmares, only haunted skulls wondering who the choked up idiot on stage was, holding a microphone in a hand shaking from the alcohol and drugs setting fire to the nerves. And then you learned to sing from your heart, from the very organ you thought you couldn’t feel. Remember what happened next? Is this next part something your mind subconsciously erased?
Dear God, I hope not.
Some caught on. You had followers from the beginning: a few brave souls who found magic in the crappy microphone and speaker-mutilated whining guitars and screaming vocals. Things grew. Grew like some cancerous disease, those who were touched couldn’t be freed. Hooked for life, some might say. Maybe you believed in this blind love, this adoration like you’d never seen before, but it didn’t show. No, instead of putting into your music more now that you had a fan base, you alienated your crowd with bottles, cups, joints.
We could all see it. You could see it.
How your hands would shake, how your eyes would roll. How you’d stutter when you spoke, and fall down face first on the pavement. You thought you found love; people were happy for you, even while they looked down their noses at you. They thought perhaps this new found love for someone would reverse the effects of touring. Boy, were they wrong. Don’t deny it; you sank. From a deep ditch you sank to a valley, and from there you sank below the deepest part of the ocean. Fans lost faith. People lost faith. But you had him so it didn’t matter. Eyes closed, you stumbled through the roughest times of your life, denying every second. But you woke up. Asleep you were alone to drown in your dreams, but did you notice that when you woke up you were surrounded?
Really, you did. We were so proud. We who were still here.
Because before the awakening, you were alone. Previous fans had left. The parking lot was empty, only those as fucked up as you could stand you. But then, when you decided to pick yourself up, dust yourself off…things changed. We believed in the music again. We believed in the band. We believed the man again. Not everyone came back, some were too distraught by your less than graceful fall to hold your hand when you rose, but you gained some fans who thought you a hero for making it through. We, the people who knew you only from the lyrics spewing from you mouth like your soul was vomiting, thought you were a hero. Ironic?
A hero composed of broken bottles, bloody flesh
The fucked up man who thought he could drink and smoke his way through the pain was a hero in our eyes. And you were a hero because you did make it through. You saved yourself, and in doing so, you save others. But when you became too popular, some turned away again. This chapter of the band was ‘Deceit’, because the very fans who adored you for being yourselves now hated you because everyone loved you. I hesitate to say you cared at all, though. The music mattered. The band mattered. Your fans mattered, and you let them know. But still some hated. Still some couldn’t see the glory in you.
Our faith means little now…do you believe in yourself?
We doubted it. Even after your fall from grace and the rise to fame, we weren’t sure you knew you were supposed to believe in yourself. Fans are one thing, because you’re nothing if you don’t believe in yourself. I mean this sincerely. Because while you screamed and cried and bled with the angels, we stood tall. It was all we could do because there was no turning back. We weren’t about to back down and follow society along like a fucking puppy on a leash. We waited for you to reclaim you halo of light on stage. I think we’re still waiting. You’re up there, but are you really, wholeheartedly up there? You believe in the fans a little too much and yourself not quite enough.
Let’s return now, to this day and age.
Do you see the faith in their eyes? In their agape mouths? No, but you feel it. There never was a lack of faith, there was always people pushing. They called you hero, set you atop a podium that you tried so desperately to get off of. They picked you bloody, mangled corpse up off the ground when you crashed, raised you on the wings of angels. The number of people pushing you fluctuated, dipped to near nil and soared to thousands, millions. You had true fans in your friends, your family; it was tough for those who saw only a burnt out star. But never did your true fans really doubt you. Never did they, collectively, turn away. Not your true fans. Never. We love you, we need you to love yourself. We have faith in you, we need you to have faith in yourself. Can you do that? For us?
Bleed. Fuck. Fight.
It was all okay, we always forgave. It’s human nature to forgive. Scars healed, body ridded itself of a poison you injected into your veins. And while we call you angel, called you hero, and allowed you the chance to make a mistake [or twenty], you don’t seem to have woken up to the love. You play the perfect part. Scream on stage, act like the gentlemen off stage, praise your fans, support their beliefs. Are you empty inside? Is this all a play, a writer’s nasty joke to get you to act your way through the day? Perhaps. Perhaps, though, it’s real. Is there the possibility that you do love yourself?
Hero. Angel. God-given savior.
You may bleed. You may scream. You may feel pain. You may glorify this pain in songs we’ll forever sing. You may cry. You may fall. But you may never be alone again.
You may be human, my angel.
Play