Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 70: Sunny

Prompt: "A real lemon of a song"

Selected by Sunny

"Best Song About Philadelphia"

The Guy Who Sings About Cities & Towns

Pennsylvania Songs: PA Exciting, 2014

I've had a pretty easy life—no real tragedies, hardships, loss of dear loved ones, etc.—which is probably why I'm soft. About a decade ago, I lived up in Boston for a couple years. I tried all the cliche stuff—went to Cheers, ate lobster rolls, became racist. I've been a vagabond my whole life, so a sense of Home has been something I've often recognized in others, but lacked. Philadelphia has been the closest, the adoptive village, and Boston to its credit has some overlapping elements—good food scene, big town / small city feel, rabid sports fans.

Coincidentally, during my short time in Boston, another vagabonding friend of mine, B, was living in Boston (down in Southie). B told me about this artist, Matt Farley, who just pumps out songs all day, every day, in bizarre topics and schemas, in an effort to do, like, something. The NYT Mag just had a piece on him.

I find this fascinating, of course, anyone who is performing art for process sake. Anyone who sees and is setting a self-imposed structure to take care of Quantity of their Art and simply allow the creative forces themselves to take care of Quality, in time, in time. Anyone who hasn't given up on goofing around and having fun with your friends for years on end because that's a core value. Maybe it creates something very strange like Farley, but I'll take a million innocent wackos over one corporate pop outfit.

B and I would joke about this guy, enamored and confused by what he was doing all day. I had him write me a couple songs, B too. He includes his number on most songs and albums, so B gave him a call. You know, had fun with it. Every year (it was just this week actually), Farley has "World Motern Day" or something where he asks everyone to go listen to his Spotify playlist from start to end so he can make $100K or something, which I -highly- doubt he actually makes, the $100K that is, but the bit goes on and on and on.

I'd leave Boston after two years when my grad program ended. B had left already, as vagabonds do, to Arizona. He was sick of the cold (don't blame him). I'd move back to Phila a few months after, and reach out, because it was Matt Farley day or something else and it reminded me of B, so I figured I'd send the usual casual catch-up text. Short one-to-two-line texts are the bread and butter of the majority of my relationships now that everyone's moved away and as I enter old age. No response though, for days, then weeks. -Something- in me thought that was weird, so I tried reaching out to mutual loved ones, but as vagabonds are, there were barely any mutual ties. Every lead came up short. I tried hiring a Private Investigator, not knowing any better, and $700 dollars and two weeks later they basically said "we don't know what we're doing lol" (advice: the only thing PIs know how to do in the 21st century is to catch your spouse cheating; this was basically what all the intake questions were about). B was smoke in the wind, and not knowing what better to do, I began the process of acceptance of loss. All I had as evidence that we did interface recently were a bunch of songs about poop.