1989_0301 : Don’t Take Pictures

Description

This is a very paranoid song; the tone is bitter, sharp-tongued, and came about when Marie refused to let me take pictures of her while we were on vacation in San Diego. It was April 2, 1989, and I was lying by the pool-side, and felt angry because it was a small request to deny, and denying it seemed to point to the same old conspiracy; without pictures, what evidence is there after a person is gone that they were ever really there, what they looked like, or that there were happy moments? I feared that Marie was refusing this request so as to leave me frightened and alone when this was all over…

Certainly a paranoid reaction on my part, yet it irked me, thanks to a past composed of inconsequential relationships with girls who didn’t love me, and who seemed to want to insure that the history books were written to show this in a light which favored me the least. Various forms of paranoia come out of this with me; i.e., why am I always alone at my birthday? It seems that the conspiracy is to abandon me right before a time when people might see me with someone, so as to exaggerate the degree to which I appear to be alone. This crisis hurt me even more when Marie didn’t appear to care whether she had any pictures of me in her souvenirs. This hurt enough to prompt these rather bitter and pointed lyrics.