Music
Coming Out
From release: halfway, pleased
By Curt Smith and Charlton Pettus
Never mind the starting gun
Cover's up the curtain's drawn
Standing in the outline
Pin the medal to the floor
The hero to the open door
Skin is only outside
Don't cut me down
Don't bring me round
Don't break my fall
I'm coming out today
Don't take me back
Don't change at all
I'm coming out today
Cut into decision day
We move ahead in different ways
Standing in the outline
We move the arrow to the cross
The building to the butcher block
Skin is only outside I don't mind
Don't cut me down……..
Everybody's gone again
Falling out and falling in two
His father's on his knees again
Reaching out for reason and truth
Don't cut me down……..
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The story:
Today I received a birthday card from my father. More accurately it was a letter disguised as a birthday card, designed to make me open it before realizing it’s origin and therefore discarding it. I managed the first paragraph before my anger brought me to a screeching halt and I found myself picking up the broken words from the floor.
“I’m sorry if it appeared that I abandoned you”.
“I’m sorry if it appeared that I didn’t care”.
From what little I actually read it appeared to be a letter of apology and a promise to change his ways. It’s a little fucking late for that don’t you think?
My father has really pissed me off since I was aged fourteen when he finally decided to move in with us. He’d had to give up working because he was too sick. At that point I had already become the fiercely independent one or rebel of the family, and his belated half-hearted attempts at being the head of the household were about as welcome as my mother’s attempts before him and my grandmother’s attempts before her. I didn’t need looking after. I was doing just fine on my own.
Prior to moving in with us he worked away. He was most noticeable for his absence. My friends sometimes asked about him, but to be honest there really wasn’t much I could tell them. “He works in the hotel industry” was the standard answer drummed into us by our mother. He was a hotel waiter was a more accurate description.
When we were younger he would come home at weekends, as we grew older the gaps between visits became longer. I swear there was a period of time when it felt like a loveable uncle coming to visit, but the anger and resentment of age has all but erased that memory. I’ve had to deal with a weak mother, bullies, school, peer pressure, girls and puberty all on my own. I’m self-sufficiency personified thank you very much! I can’t miss what I’ve never had. It can only make me stronger and more independent. Am I right?
His trial fatherhood lasted about a year before he took my brothers and I aside and informed us that our mother had asked him to leave. I already knew this of course as my mother had initially asked me to tell him. He went on to say how he hadn’t felt welcome since the day he moved in and thought it would be better all round if he did as my mother asked. In lieu of informing him how observant I felt that was, I spat at him and shouted “good!” which I felt was perfectly acceptable behavior for the reinstated alpha male of the family.
Once he’d left we settled back into our comfortable dysfunctional normality. Our emotionally absent mother dutifully ignoring the fighting, drinking, sex and occasional drug taking that was my teenage life. All was as it should be – until my mother got a boyfriend.
He claimed to be a teacher and he talked a good game, but to me he appeared to be a drunken con man, nothing he said seemed to ring true. He ended up moving in with us which I found highly unacceptable, especially when he started to attempt to tell us how to behave, The rhythm of life was ruined again.
He left every morning for work, briefcase in hand. One day I decided to follow him. “Work” consisted of strolling around town until the pubs opened, and then consuming pint after pint of England’s finest ale until it was time to stumble back home to the poor misguided soul that was my mother, who seemed to buy the story that he’d just stopped for a quick drink with a fellow member of academia. Fuckwit!!
I still don’t know to this day whether I was defending my mother’s honor or my own territory, but that night I gave him two choices. Leave voluntarily by the front door or by force via the kitchen window of our fourth floor walk-up. He left through the door, his belongings weren’t so lucky. I was shaking so much I couldn’t sleep all night, but someone had to do it.
I’m not sure if my father found out about this joyous adventure via my brothers (who still talked to him), but not long after that the letters started to arrive. The first one was a rambling treatise on his failures as a father, unfortunately I wanted him to tell me something I didn’t know - preferably to my face so that I could kick the shit out of him afterwards - but all I received were written apologies, way to go tough man.
Suffice to say that all subsequent letters were deposited unopened into the trash, until today.
It was well disguised, it wasn’t on the cheap blue notepaper he usually used and stuffed hastily into a crumpled envelope. It was solid stock in a sturdy envelope, my name and address written with carefully capitalized penmanship. It made me want to open it. It turned out to be a plain white card with recycled excuses.
There was no “happy birthday”.
I trashed it, took a deep breath and went to the pub to celebrate my 17th birthday.
I dreamt about him that night after I collapsed in a drunken stupor, and as always he was smiling. I wish that image would go away.
The story behind the story:
From the maternal separation that was “Halfway Pleased” to the paternal separation of “Coming Out”,
“Never mind the starting gun, cover’s up the curtain’s drawn”. The first two lines are meant to portray isolation and a refusal to deal with life. The starting gun is the alarm or the start of another day. It’s ignored as the bedcover stays firmly in place over his head and the curtains remain closed. It’s also meant to convey an antipathy towards his heritage, “it doesn’t matter where I came from” – where I started. “I’ve repressed that part” – the cover’s up – “It’s over” – the curtain’s drawn. I also liked the subtle use of gun and drawn together.
“Standing in the outline” – this is the chalk outline that remains after the dead body is moved. In this case it could be symbolic of the father’s demise in the eyes of the child, or an out of body experience as he looks at the outline of himself as a child. He has now become a man. The line also works well coming from “drawn”, another example of moving a comma.
“Pin the medal to the floor, the hero to the open door” – an animosity towards his father’s so called masculinity. The medal and the hero are only symbols. They don’t necessarily portray the truth. The medal is on the outline of a corpse. The hero has bolted through the open door. The lines also portray the resentment that a fourteen-year-old “slacker” may feel towards the idea of being in charge of anything, or his ambivalence towards being rewarded.
“Skin is only outside” - simultaneously disowning his father while quietly implying that he is putting on a front – this is only skin, it doesn’t show what’s inside.
“Don’t cut me down” – if I’m hanging don’t save me or don’t criticize me. “Don’t bring me round” – if I’ve overdosed don’t help me or don’t make me see the light. “Don’t break my fall” – if I’m falling don’t catch me or don’t cushion my emotional freefall. All double meanings.
“I’m coming out today” refers again to the boy becoming a man. It also has the sense of “coming out to play” and a little gay innuendo – the need for another man (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
The next verse deals with the decisive steps of effectively disowning his father. “Cut into decision day” is describing it as a movie edit, but the word “cut” is used intentionally as a description of severance. “We move ahead in different ways”, suggests that the boy/man has chosen to take a different path. It could also be written “a head” which is why I particularly liked this line - it’s figuratively severing his father’s manhood.
“We move the arrow to the cross” is used to portray two things – choosing the mother over the father, moving the male arrow sign to the female cross sign, it also has religious symbolism (there’s a shock) - killing the savior.
“The building to the butcher block” is the child becoming a man again – swapping the building blocks for the butcher block, he is no longer playing he is now providing.
“Everybody’s gone again” is the realization that as always the boy is left to fend for himself, it’s also a sly reference to an old song of mine called “Gone Again”.
“Falling out and falling in two” – describes his relationship with his father (now over). It could also be written “into?” – wondering what will come next. Which turns out to be -“his father’s on his knees again” – a little more religious symbolism with the father now being a priest. He’s begging for forgiveness, showing that he’s weak in the eyes of the child.
The last line comes from both perspectives, the father and the son. The father is asking the son to be reasonable, he’s trying to tell his side of the story so that the son doesn’t have to rely only on the mother’s version of events.
The son is just asking why? How did this happen? “Reaching out for reason and truth”.
Very interesting but not for everyone.Great work
Mike,
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