The Plea of the Desperate
Thin Lizzy - Dear Lord
Even though I’m not religious, so I don’t really believe in prayer, when the tide is against me and I find myself barely able to keep flapping my brown skinny arms against the undertow of life’s harsher currents, I seem to always have that moment where I ask God to throw me a line. And I don’t actually believe in God, I believe in math.
For me, it’s a complex agreement I have with myself: I don’t believe in this, but please let this work.
Addiction seems to be a ripe ground for this type of plea. Overtures from the gutter, Lord can you hear me when I call? Those with doomed souls crying for salvation. Spacemen 3 made a career of songs praying for salvation, well maybe Jason Spaceman did anyway. Sometimes it plays out like a cynical plea for help, from the type of faith which one has likely abandoned long before, when it became obvious that that same faith has no real belief in them. Or then maybe they wouldn’t be in this position to begin with.
Phil doesn’t sound cynical here. It’s straight gospel, really.
I'm down deep and I need your help
There's no one to turn to and I can't help myself
Dear lord hear this call
Oh lord save my fall
Life knocks you the fuck down. It’s my petulance taking over in those moments, when I wonder why it works out for some people and doesn’t work out for others.
If you give your soul to heaven
And your soul begins to bleed
Remember all the sevens
Don't turn up when you need
There’s no rhyme or reason. And religion, or religious philosophy, is just a way of massaging our anger when the dice don’t roll our way. My favorite way of accepting loss or disappointment has been the explanation that Alan Watts lays out that all we are is a vessel for the universe to experience its full self.
I can’t tell if that’s cynical or not.
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