What Will The Future Bring?

I was doodling around on Itunes last night and decided to download some Matthew Sweet. I am not one of his huge fans, but I am indebted to him.

I will explain.

A while back, I was walking with my dear friend, an amateur social anthropologist. She always asks sort of strange questions and most of the time I feel like my meager answers let her down. She wants to probe my brain and I think it is at once both too dense and full of air to offer her much in the nature of substantive data for her ongoing research on what makes us all tick. On this day, though, I was, however serendipitously, ready for her.

"If you had to pick your theme song, what would it be?" she asked.

"'Walk Out' by Matthew Sweet" I answered - without pause or thought. She was sort of stunned there for a moment because she usually has to listen to me yammer for a while, trying to come up with something - I don't know - unembarrassing - to say to her when she asks me this stuff.

"Walk Out" was my song, though, from the moment I heard it. It sums up a journey without a destination, which is kinda what I am doing with myself these days.

She had never heard of it and I can't blame her. Matthew Sweet isn't really mainstream and "Walk Out" is one of his deeper cuts. The truth of the matter is, I heard it on an old episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, an erstwhile TV show known for it's superior quality, low ratings and soundtrack.

"You're gonna change" he sings, "You've just about made up your mind. You're gonna change and when you leave it all behind, what will the past remember? What will the future bring? When you walk out?"

The thing about it is that I never thought of the walking out in this song as running away from anything. To me, it means getting up and going - to a different place, a more honest place, a place of conscious choice and not just chance. It means making a decision to become yourself. It's also got a catchy beat that makes you speed when you sing it in the car on the way to work.

I like that. And I like my theme song.

What about ya'll? Does anybody else have a theme song? I'll forward your responses to my friend. She'll love 'em!

Image by: Spitting Image Photos