41. "Grave Dancer's Union" by Soul Asylum (1992)

I tried to get a good job
With honest pay
Might as well join the mob
The benefits are okay
Standing in the sun with a popsicle
Everything is possible
With a lot of luck and a pretty face
And some time to waste

You leave without a trace
Leave without a trace
Leave without a trace

I tried to dance at a funeral
New Orleans style
I joined the Grave Dancer's Union
I had to file
Trying to do the right thing, play it straight
The right thing changes from state to state
Don't forget to take your mace
If you're out working late

I liked to see your face
You left without a trace
Leave without a trace

Life is absurd and you have to make the best of it if you want to stay sane. Is David Pirner of Soul Asylum an "absurdist hero" because he is faced with an absurd situation and keeps on going anyway? Maybe. The other day I was watching a re-run of "The Office", when Michael Scott finally realized that his girlfriend was taking advantage of him and he was broke because she ran up all his credit cards. He walks out of the office, walks to the railroad tracks, sits in a boxcar, and sings a chorus of "Runaway Train":

I can go where no one else can go
I know what no one else knows
here I am just a-drownin' in the rain
With a ticket for a runaway train
An everything seems cut and dried
Day and night, earth and sky
Somehow I just don't believe it

Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there

The train never moves for Michael Scott, by the way; his girlfriend shows up and he has to face his problems after all.

cds

p.s. There is a short ad to start the video. The 90s were so cool.


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