I picked up supervenusfreak after he worked his overtime tonight and Gilbert O’Sullivan’s cheesily tragic “Alone Again, Naturally” came on the radio while we were driving home.
For some reason, I decided to Google the song and discovered that Nina Simone had recorded a cover (not really a cover, actually…she almost completely rewrote the lyrics) and listened to it.
I have to say that I think she absolutely transcended the cheesy 70s mopey melodrama of the original song. Her lyrics just rip into her feelings about her father’s death and the way it affected her family without any holding back. It’s very raw, and very true, and it affected me much more deeply than the original by G O’S ever did.
I listened to about 2 minutes of that. Only my head accidentally striking the mute button as I dashed it against my keyboard saved me from near-certain death. Terrifyingly, I may be forced to listen to the whole thing. Like the nameless, faceless terror of my nightmares, I fear I may one day again be confronted with the bit of song I heard, in my dreams. As I listen again to the snippit of song and my dread rises, I’m afraid my mind will concoct ever more horrifying verses to fill in the part I did not hear, and I will be found in the morning with a frozen rictus of horror, as though I’d met Cthulhu in my dreamscape.
I prefer the Gilbet O’Sullivan version, and damn you for making me say that.