72. 10 Songs of Solipsism

One Man Guy - Rufus Wainwright
Solitaire - The Carpenters
I Am a Rock - Simon and Garfunkel
The World Should Revolve Around Me - Little Jackie
Loneliness - Ed Harcourt
I Am the Resurrection - The Stone Roses
Speak to Me, Someone - Gene
The One and Only - Chesney Hawkes
Faster - Manic Street Preachers
All By Myself - Eric Carmen

Or, perhaps more accurately in some ofe these cases, narcissism. Of course, loneliness and not wanting to be lonely forms - rightly - the subject matter to many great songs, but in these cases, whether deliberately or otherwise, it's taken a little bit further, either to be a monumental howl of self-pity, a monumental cry of self-aggrandisement, a combination of the two, or a wry look at the state of solipsism.
I happen to like most of these songs a lot, which says something about me, but i do stop short at the Eric Carmen one, though it is a good source of comedy.
One Man Guy is a rather wonderful case, originally written and performed in a comedy folk style by father Loudon Wainwright III to be a rather scathing and selfish track, then reinvented by son Rufus, with the aid of magical backing vocals by sister Martha, to have a much greater sense of ambiguity and longing.
Some people will say we're all alone in this life, some people would say we're never alone, and really it's just a matter of semantics, isn't it? There's a myth in Ovid's Metamorphosis where Philemon and Baucis, an old married couple, as a reward for welcoming Jupiter and Mercury, are granted their wish to die at the same time, when they turn into interlocking trees, and I guess Romeo and Juliet is, less happily, along the same lines.
So, the former tale was on my mind when I wrote this. Also, I was thinking of that phrase so beloved of soap operas "You're going to die a bitter, lonely, old man". I was also keen that all the words in this should be one syllable, or at most two. I should do that more often; I found it very satisfactory. I like the fact that the first seven lines begin with I. I also tried to make it entirely free of quirk, for quirk is my everlasting curse:

I lived alone when I was young,
I was alone in every breath.
I thought in moments, so moments passed,
I passed on life, and looked to death.
I never saw you come, my love,
I blinked and saw you go.
I stretched my gaze out for a moment,
but you kept on; and I looked below.

Please breathe in me as I die
so I shall not die alone.
My own breath was enough when I was young
but now I'm not that strong.

You breathed on me as I sat beside you;
I looked away and prayed for rain
and it came, and you went to find the sun.
You lived, while I breathed again.
I slept alone, but every night
in my dreams, you breathed in me.
I woke alone, and when I woke
I dreamed you dreamed of me.

I dreamt you called me on the breeze
but each night, I would not follow
'til one night, in colour, I moved toward you
but I awoke; the dream was hollow.

Breathe in me when I dream no more -
as I lived, I shall not die.
Each breath has been despite itself,
to hasten this lonely life by.
Let me die with your breath within me
so I do not die alone.
I believed I could live on hollow dreams
but am not, nor have been, that strong.