Well, I just want to say,
Right away,
I ain’t no hero.
Never been a hero
Never gonna be a hero.
Never want to be a hero.
It’s not like I have any of those superhuman traits.
No flying.
No super speed.
Skin ain’t green
No webby stuff.
Can’t talk to fish.
No radioactivity at all.
I don’t really have any of those normal hero-y things either.
No burning buildings.
No CPR on the side of a lonely desert highway.
No ultimate sacrifice.
Never had the chance for any of those.
Frankly, never want to have the chance for any of those.
Way too much pressure.
Waaaay too much pressure.
And then there are those mythological types.
You know sword in the stone,
Flying hammer,
Big axe with a blue ox.
I have problems using chopsticks.
Much less the history.
My mama never dipped me in a river,
Dad never taught how to make wings of wax.
Never had to do twelve things to prove my worth.
I was just a normal suburban kid.
But after her,
The one hero that really kinda stuck with me was Orpheus.
Not the Walk out of Hades and don’t look back or you will lose your wife Orpheus.
Frankly, I am so nervous and unsure of my love
It that would have been me
I would have been backpedaling the whole way,
Come on, come on, come on!
Please, Please, Please!
Total failure.
Nah, the Orpheus I knew was the Orpheus who sang his grief so strong
He sang the sun down.
Even hell heard his pain.
When I was with her,I felt like Apollo taught me how to sing.
The early days , the good times,
Were just an old fashioned love song,
Playing on the radio.
Our days felt like they were made of guitar strings
And saxophone solos
And raindrops just like soft cymbal beats
And that whooshing of the wind into leaves
And then the wind chimes
Tinkling into a mystical tune
That no one else heard
And the wind dying down and the silence
The silence with her
It was music.
Damn it.
It was music.
Those were the good Orpheus days.
I was a singer then.
Maybe the closest I got to being a hero.
I was loved.
I thought I was loved.
Then the music, you know,
Kind of changed.
Like in Stairway to Heaven.
It starts out all slow and mellow.
Simple plucking notes on the guitar,
Some airy flute stuff.
Slow dance material.
You’re not even really listening to the lyrics.
Just dancing, baby, just dancing.
Then the driving drums drop in
And it picks up intensity
And you can’t hear the flute any more
And you’re a 12 year old boy
Dancing with a girl who is taller than you
In the middle of a running guitar solo
And you’re thinking
How slick your skin is
And your face is really close to her chest
And then it dies down really fast
And she’s buying a stairway to Heaven.
And that was it.
She decided the dance was over.
She just walked away.
We had the flutey part.
Lasted through the drum battle.
Left when the lyrics ran out.
That’s when I really felt like Orpheus.
Eurydice had kidnapped herself.
Hades
Even Hades
Was better than me.
She didn’t even give me a path to follow.
I was left with just the songs
Just the grief.
Cause losing everything
Was like the sun going down on me.
So I ain’t a hero
Never going to be a hero.
Too afraid to be a hero.
I’m just a 12 year old boy
Sweating in an awkward slow dance
I may be able to sing like Orpheus.
But I’m doing it alone.
Na na na na
Na na na na
Hey Hey Hey
Goodbye
“Na na na na
Na na na na
Hey Hey Hey
Goodbye.