Prompt: "A song that makes you want to move to another country"
Selected by Pat
"Dreams"
The Cranberries
Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?, 1993
I don't want to move to a different country. It took me long enough to figure out how American society works, and I don't want to start over from scratch. The U.S. is huge enough anyway that I could move to another state and it would functionally be like moving abroad. The bottom line is that I like where I live now (a lot) and I'm content to stay. It doesn't matter who gets elected president or how bad the weather gets. I was born in the U.S. and—barring some sort of kidnapping scenario—I'll die in the U.S.
Gun to my head though, I guess I'd say Ireland. Not very creative, but let me explain. As I've gotten older and especially since I've gotten sober, I've had an evolving relationship with my heritage. In my experience, so much of being an Irish-American revolves around drinking and grievance and a Disneyland version of the culture. Not the kind of stuff I'm interested in. I've been making more of an effort to cut through all that bullshit. I'm learning a little bit of Gaeilge ("Tá bod ollmhór agam"). I'm reading about the history of the colonization, the diaspora, and the Troubles, mostly to figure out why Irish-Americans are cops, while Dublin City Hall flew a Palestinian flag. And, most lazily, I'm watching whatever RTÉ shows get streamed on Netflix. If you haven't seen Derry Girls, see it. It's deeply funny, and sad, but mostly funny. "Dreams" is the perfect theme song.
3 comments:
This is why learning Gaeilge has been so interesting. Irish Gaelic (what I wrote) and Scottish Gaelic (what the editor plugged into Google translate) are similar, but not identical languages. If I said that phrase in Edinburgh, everyone would look at me with confusion. But if I said it in Galway, I'd get a drink thrown in my face. Fascinating!
I regret the mistake, since the Irish Gaelic translation is way funnier, as it is a much more egregious lie.
As fellow kneeslapper Mark Twain once said: "Never let truth get in the way of a good story."
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