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I Put My Headphones On- Song of the Day


I'm gonna try to showcase one of my back catalog songs everyday. It's good practice for...something.

Above is a video from last years record - Nostalgia Kills - release show at City Winery.

Here is the recording from the record--- here!

I have a small head. As a pre-teen, I had a pea-sized head. So picture me with this pair of gigantic Koss headphones on. They covered half my face, and must have weighed at least three pounds. I even wore them around the house when I wasn’t plugged in. I liked the heft and size. The foam against my ears made me feel safe. I could shut out the world around me. I could shut out my parents arguing. I could fill in the silence of a lonely unpopular shitty 7th grade where the phone wasn’t ringing off the hook with party or date offers. But I did have friends like Bowie’s Major Tom, The Kinks, Lola, and Elton’s Bennie (with his electric boots and mohair suits). I also somehow found comfort in characters that had it way worse than me: like the sad and crazy Delta Dawn, John Prine's Vietnam Vet junkie Sam Stone, and even that deeply in need of love or meds, Eleanor Rigby.

I wasn’t a total downer. I did believe that one day I would be able to take the headphones off. One day I could unplug and actually share my music with someone else- someone special and maybe a little odd like me… Maybe, at the new school next Fall? I kept on playing repeatedly and believing, “ooh-oo child things are gonna get easier. Ooh-oo child things'll get brighter…”

I Put My Headphones On

I’m in the wings when you push me on

But I never learned the words to the songs

And there I stand naked, they’re staring at me, laughing at me

I’m by the locker turning the dial

The hallway is empty and stretches for miles

Then I’m on a boat heading over the falls

You reach for my hand but it just breaks off

I suddenly wake up was only a dream

I’m back in the gilt cage that you made for me

But when you are working or fast asleep

I put my headphones on

I put my headphones on

I’m in the backyard burying the bones

Don’t know why I did it, hope no one will know

I can’t seem to hide the remains of my crime, I never learned to fly

I suddenly wake up was only a dream

I’m back in the gilt cage that you made for me

There might be someone who listens to me

I put my headphones on

I put my headphones on

Flip the record, headphones on

Court and spark, the 7th song

Joni sings love is gone, “love is gone”

Janis ian’s “Seventeen”

That song from 10cc

Alone again naturally

Someone has is worse than me

Sam Stone, Major Tom

Captain Jack and Delta Dawn

Alvin Tustig, Sweet Jane

Music wash away my pain

I put my headphones on

I put my headphones

Ooo, child, things are going to get easier…

written by Jill Sobule/Robin Eaton

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