I'll Sing Along Forever

I am posting because B-lyn told me to.

I was listening to the Bouncing Souls and decided to write a little thing about them, because while I was listening to them I was thrown back to three years ago. Also, for me, the Bouncing Souls and March will always be linked together like two fingers wishing for luck.

I left and came home from my mission in March 2002 and 2004. The coming home was far and away the harder of the two. I hated it. I hated it for a lot of reasons. I won't go through them because that is not what I want to talk about; the fact that I was a sad mess should do just fine. First, lets go back in time. Now entering flashback story mode: Doodle-a-doo Doodle-a-doo Doodle-a-doo Doodle-a-doo Doodle-a-doo...

1999-2001 The thought that we needed to maybe start taking life a little more serious started to make it's way from the back of our minds and struggle to be closer to the front. And reject it though we may, it was going to get there too. Some of us started to try and be serious and get a move on in a positive direction, and others (the group I belonged to) didn't. The main catalyst for this "movement" was that we were going to be nineteen soon, and are we going to go on this mission? and if so, we need to change so that we do it right. There was nothing around me that could really reach me and convince me to move on. One thing that really held me back was I knew that because of certain things I have done and was doing that road might take me a long time and I didn't have the heart for it.

Thanks to some great friends I started to make my way slowly and not very surely, but I started to put in some effort. Still nothing had really reached me in a way to help me give it my all. I went and bought a CD one day, and I got a free compilation CD with it. There were seven songs on it. Track six was "True Believers" and track seven was "The Gauntlet" by the Dropkick Murphys. It is weird to me today that they were both on there right next to each other because both of these songs became an anthem for that period of our lives and helped me through it. A few of us were in to the Bouncing Souls during this time, and I don't remember if the new Bouncing Souls record had not come out yet or what, but I hadn't heard "True Believers" yet, and when I saw it on there I was happy because the CD wasn't a total waste.

I don't remember the first time I listened to it, and I don't know when it exactly happened, but it was really the first thing that reached me. "Now you can fight or you can run/hide under a rock till the war is won/play it safe and don't make a sound/but not us/we won't back down." I wanted to be part of the group that wasn't under the rock. I realized I really didn't like being under it. I found that I was so much happier actually putting up a fight. I still listen to this, and when I can't listen I sing it it my head, when I fail or think I can't do this anymore and want to stop trying so hard, and it reminds me that it is better to be a True Believer in all aspects of life and take my licks than hide and not try. So while in the big picture punk-rock wasn't really the most important thing at the time, it was the song that helped me realize that believing in something, even if it is just life, isn't just thinking about it, but doing something about it. And life is better if you give it a purpose.