I'm Unwell, Yeah, I've Gone Bad.

I'm sick. (I know, I've read your blog.) No, I mean I'm really fucking sick--my throat is burning, my skull feels like it's in a vise, my bone marrow has turned to osmium... (What the hell is osmium?) It's the heaviest substance there is. I was trying to suggest how sluggish I feel. (Well, then just say lead or molasses or something, no one knows what the fuck osmium is...) I felt it was implied... (...osmium, he says, like I have a friggin' periodic table handy...) Will you just go away, please? (Hey, you plop-plop a Night-Time Alka Seltzer, this is what yer gonna get.) Yeah, I figured as much. I'm looped on the stuff. I kept rising vaguely out of my sleep today, like a bubble of methane breaking the surface of a thick swamp, and every goddamn time I woke I had "Philadelphia Freedom" in my head and couldn't shake it, couldn't even attempt to. (Yeah, I like that song. What, you don't like that song?) I do, but it was always just there, like I had no say in the matter. (You don't. Remember that time when you were ten and home from St. Pius with the flu, and you were looking at the Star Wars calendar in your darkened bedroom, and the chess creatures were moving around on the board in front of Chewbacca? Wasn't that cool?) Yeah... did you do that too? (Of course. I also cook up those crazy fever dreams of yours.) You mean those ones where it's like I have to shoot light pulses around a circuit board in a certain pattern over and over, with no meaning or end in sight, and I wake up feeling more exhausted than when I went to sleep? (Ha ha, yeah, those.) Jesus, I HATE those! They're like an OCD Tron video game. (Heh, yup, something like that.) Am I going to get better soon? (How should I know? Better get some rest, and dose up again. I have work to do. Say, do you like Ace of Base?)


It seems only appropriate to add a song Lantern Fishworks and I wrote called "Sick." This is our ultra-rare Witner Twins demo (which sounds pretty good on the CD but came out sounding like a wax cylinder here):
SICK DEMO
Vocals: Dale
Guitar, backing vocals: Frank

And here is the equally ultra-rare "finished" Martyrs version, complete with the Feebs' droning, malarial solo:
SICK
Vocals: me
Guitar: Mike
Bass: Chris
Noise thingy: Jim

(Hey, that solo is great--couldn't have done better myself!)

SICK (Dale Witner/Frank Witner)

There's pain in me where pain shouldn't be
For someone still as young as me
My muscles ache, my joints are weak
The bones inside go crack and creak

(chorus)
The morning's when I have it rough
'cause when I wake I can't get up
Once I'm up, I stand around
It hurts too much to sit back down

An x-ray only shows the breaks
And pills will only ease the aches
The misery is still in me
There's no cure for what's killing me

The medicine man shook a stick
I smoked the pipe but I'm still sick
He shook his head in disbelief
That he could not bring me relief

I am sick and I've gone wrong
I tell myself it won't be long
I'm unwell, yeah, I've gone bad
But don't you cry, please don't be sad

I give up, but thanks a lot
My only peace is in this shot
That's the way it's always been
Since the day my pain did begin

©1995 Witner Wonderland Music