Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Don't misunderstand me: i WANT to be misunderstood.

Two "WANTED" posters from 1977:



What did they "want" back then?
Same thing any of us wants anytime.

There's something within us that just wants to be understood.
Or not.

Why would any of us blog, preach, teach, produce art....knowing that inevitably it will be understood?

And misunderstood?

Isn't that what we signed up for? And want?.

Do we thwart and sabotage the very understanding we think we want?
Only when someone largely misunderstands me am I largely understood.

As the Cheech and Chong skit went, "Doctor, don't misundertake me."

Pete Townsend, journaling on his celebrity circa 1977 (the year I graduated high school, and thus desperately wanted to be (mis)understood on a little-heard and (ironically) misunderstood album, once sang this:

"Misunderstood"

I just wanna be misunderstood
Wanna be feared in my neighborhood
Just wanna be a moody man
Say things that nobody can understand

I wanna be obscure and oblique
Inscrutable and vague
So hard to pin down
I wanna leave open


mouths when I speak
Want people to cry when I put them down



I wanna be either old or young
Don't like where I've ended up or where I begun
I always feel I must get things in the can
I just can't handle it the way I am

Why am I so straight and simple
People see through me like I'm made of glass
Why can't I deepen with graying temples
Am I growing out of my class

I always feel I should be somewhere else
I feel impatient like a girl on the shelf
They say that I should live sera sera
But I am such an ordinary star

Coolwalking smoothtalking straightsmoking firestoking


Just wanna be misunderstood
I wanna be feared in my neighborhood
Just wanna be a moody man
Say things that nobody can understand

Coolwalking smoothtalking straightsmoking firestoking
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Related:

See the "tags" below on "self-disclosure".


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