Regrets, I’ve had a few
—Lyric from My Way by Frank Sinatra
I often start my blog posts with a lyric. I generally have a song playing on repeat in my brain. It could be the last song I heard—in fact when I go for a run, it’s always the last song I heard, a three or four bar clip, over and over, like a mantra or a fever dream setting my pace. Or the song could be put there by suggestion—a book, a band, a conversation, like Sinatra’s regrets line earlier. When I hear My Way in my head, I don’t think of Sinatra. I abhor Frank Sinatra. My entire adult life, at the end of parties, after last call, when they flip on the lights and pull out the push brooms, My Way is always playing. Somehow, Sinatra became the classy way to shut down the night.
I’m not a classy guy. In college, the frat guys who rolled their eyes at my sleeveless band-shirts and torn up jeans, would sing along with Sinatra. My group paid our tab and returned to the dorms to shout along with the Who or Deep Purple or the Clash. Sinatra’s My Way will forever be associated in my mind with collared shirts, pink shorts and loafers—the uniform of the fraternity crowd at Lynchburg College circa 1983. When I think of My Way, I think of the Sid Vicious version from the mockumentary soundtrack of the Sex Pistols’ Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle. While it’s Sinatra’s line, it’s Sid’s delivery. Splitting hairs? You decide.
I’ve been listening to a podcast about the album Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) by the Kinks. Let’s just call it Arthur. And no, I wasn’t familiar with it either. For the past month and a half, I’ve been listening to the podcast Discord & Rhyme. Eight music nerds take turns discussing individual albums. What’s good (and bad) about the music, what’s good (and bad) about the lyrics, the history of the band and the band members, and dozens of related or semi-related topics. Each episode clocks in at around two hours, so it takes a few days to finish one.
Every morning, I tap play, activate the flashing bike light on the back of my backpack and walk to work. My podcast buddies educate me. This week, I’ve learned about Arthur.
Regrets, I’ve had a few.
Arthur, a concept album, tells the life story of Arthur Morgan. I don’t plan to dwell on the plot, except to mention that Arthur was born in London near the tail-end of the Victorian era. At the start of the pandemic, I saw a meme about people born in the late 1800s. They lived through World War One, the Spanish Flu, Prohibition, the Great Depression and then World War Two. The gist of the meme was quit yer belly aching, you don’t know what it means to suffer. That’s an awful lot of trauma to endure over thirty years. We were all wigged out by isolating for three months.
Arthur’s story depressed the hell out of me. He spends his life working a menial job, making small gains, a tiny home, a telly, the pride of seeing his children grow to adults—although one dies in Korea. At the end of his life, is he filled with regret? The Kinks don’t say. If I was Arthur, I would be.
It makes me wonder what the point is. Why do we live? Someone on Facebook today derided the idea that the point of life is happiness. No, they said, the point of life is to leave your mark, to make a difference. That makes me wonder, if I’m happy but I don’t leave my mark, has my life been pointless? Arthur certainly never made a mark. He performed a job that anyone could do. His one surviving son doesn’t like him that much. The Kinks don’t get into the details, but they don’t mention civic engagement, friendships, or even a dog. Is Arthur’s life pointless? Am I Arthur?
In my daily life, I interact with a bank teller. She’s impossibly young, probably eighteen. She seems more like a high schooler than a professional. Her whole life stretches out before her. What will she achieve? What mark will she leave? Does she go home to a tiny apartment with a hot plate instead of a stove? Does she have a cat? Is she happy? At the end of her life, what will she regret?
This podcast has doubled-down on the introspective mood left behind by the Midnight Library. It’s probably time for me to seek out some more cheery entertainment.
A few years before they released Arthur, the Kinks released a single called Dead End Street. It sums up Arthur better than Arthur does.
There’s a crack up in the ceiling,
And the kitchen sink is leaking.
Out of work and got no money,
A Sunday joint of bread and honey.
What are we living for?
Two-roomed apartment on the second floor.
No money coming in,
The rent collector’s knocking, trying to get in.
We are strictly second class,
We don’t understand,
Why we should be on dead end street.
People are living on dead end street.
Gonna die on dead end street.
Dead end street
Dead end street
On a cold and frosty morning,
Wipe my eyes and stop me yawning.
And my feet are nearly frozen,
Boil the tea and put some toast on.
What are we living for?
Two-roomed apartment on the second floor.
No chance to emigrate,
I’m deep in debt and now it’s much too late.
We both want to work so hard,
We can’t get the chance,
People live on dead end street.
People are dying on dead end street.
Gonna die on dead end street.
Dead end street
Dead end street
Watch Sid Vicious sing My Way (Content warning: murder, mayhem and some really bad language).
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Previously Published on Jeff Cann’s blog and is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
