Just a shot away
Mar. 14th, 2005 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
constanceYou know what I like about my job? I get to drive to places that no one's ever heard of, spend hours on the road with only a few farm trucks for company. This week, I'm working in a town so small that it doesn't have a motel, and staying 30 minutes away, and the road in between is the widest, emptiest road ever, the world's most perfect road for screaming the lyrics to your favorite soul songs. Which is what I've been listening to lately, mostly because of Goodbye without Leaving, the heroine of which is living my perfect life.
You know what I want? What I really, really want? Geraldine Coleshares's life, absolutely, an obscure job and a husband who says the word "boogie" with just the right amount of irony, and a son named Little Franklin. I want to have been a backup singer, a Shakette. I want to have made rejected sexual overtures to a horn player named Doo-Wah (Wah for short). I want dance routines and little fringed dresses.
But the thing I really want is that voice. I mean, I can sing a little. I can carry a tune, as long as I don't have to carry it too far. I can sing like Natalie Merchant, or like Hope Sandoval. But I want a voice that hits people in the throat, a voice so big that it can fill a room. I want to be the background of "Gimme Shelter." I want to sing "Respect" and make people think I mean it. I want to hit the high notes on "Lady Marmalade" (shut up, I LOVE this song) with a voice as confident and powerful as Patti LaBelle's.
I am not getting this voice, and I know it. But riding on the Mississippi backroads, I can pretend that I have always had it, and be happy.
You know what I want? What I really, really want? Geraldine Coleshares's life, absolutely, an obscure job and a husband who says the word "boogie" with just the right amount of irony, and a son named Little Franklin. I want to have been a backup singer, a Shakette. I want to have made rejected sexual overtures to a horn player named Doo-Wah (Wah for short). I want dance routines and little fringed dresses.
But the thing I really want is that voice. I mean, I can sing a little. I can carry a tune, as long as I don't have to carry it too far. I can sing like Natalie Merchant, or like Hope Sandoval. But I want a voice that hits people in the throat, a voice so big that it can fill a room. I want to be the background of "Gimme Shelter." I want to sing "Respect" and make people think I mean it. I want to hit the high notes on "Lady Marmalade" (shut up, I LOVE this song) with a voice as confident and powerful as Patti LaBelle's.
I am not getting this voice, and I know it. But riding on the Mississippi backroads, I can pretend that I have always had it, and be happy.
