Only the Wild Ones

Listen while you read: Only the Wild Ones

Long hair and longer stride and your cut-off painter pants
Chargin' down the craggy mountains with our thrift store friends
Who you find so . . . so in love with the falling earth

Oh, you wake in the middle of the falling night
With summer playing coy in the attics of the city night
We talked Corso and the MC5
You could dance like we were all all right

Only the wild ones give you something and never want it back
Oh, the riot and the rush of the warm night air
Only the wild ones are the ones you can never catch
Stars are up now, no place to go
But everywhere
. . . 

~  Chad (Urmston) Stokes (for Dispatch)

Although Dispatch was around from 1996 until 2002 and then appeared sporadically after that, I do not recall knowing about them. "Only the Wild Ones" is the new single from their recent release America, Location 12. I'm sorry I was not following them back in the day, if for no other reason than they have a track record as humanitarians, offering benefit concerts and service projects around the world.

As for "Only the Wild Ones," I'll let Chad tell you the background story:
"There was this guy named Trevor Tall Fox that I met during my short stint in Vermont. We bonded over our love for primitive cultures, flinging ourselves down the mountainside, naked skateboarding, running from the cops and train-hopping. I left Middlebury after a year, and unfortunately, lost touch, but I heard that he changed his name after moving to Costa Rica.

After Vermont, I settled in New York City for a few years. I met a tall fellow from Chicago named Charlie, and he was on a mission to soak up everything New York had to offer. I was glad to tag along. He was hell bent on reading the New York Times from start to finish every day and eventually having an interview show like Charlie Rose. He was also an incredible dancer, not an easy feat for someone 6'6". He was all limbs, but he could move like the best of 'em. We'd run up walls and climb street lamps -- he had no trouble causing a scene. This was right around the time Giuliani outlawed dancing in pubs and bars. So we made it our business to go out and start dance parties (and no one could start a party like Charlie) in all the nearby bars.

This song is about those guys, it's about wild best friends that made anything possible."

After reading that, I thought about my life so far, and how "wild" it has been. Not very. Of late, I've thought a lot about how conditioned we can be, how brainwashed as children to behave a certain way. I was a Girl Scout and a good Catholic kid. I rarely sinned, and if I did, it was off to Confession I went. Guilt ruled.

Thinking about this today makes me sad. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be encouraged to favor good over evil, but the way we were hit over the head with rules and punishment was not the best way to achieve that. I always had a secret desire to hop a train. Where might it have taken me?

Everywhere.