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Writer's pictureartahammer

Daddy Issues

One night, while xploring the Beatles The Beatles album (the one that saved a ton on cover graphics only to squander the savings on the inside lyric sheet and headshots) I had the occasion to share with Robin the song that spawned a franchise: Helter Skelter.


The song I had a hankering to hear, Everybody’s Got Something to Hide (‘Cept For Me and My Monkey) is a track away from said cultural icon and we both were impressed how well the album holds up. I always viewed the White Album as Lennon’s breakout work, thus my favorite of the Beatles albums, but to deny Paul his props for what was once a magnificent rock voice would do him a disservice, regardless of the positively awful Christmas song playing on the Korean Market’s PA system the other night.


To make a long story interminable, the consideration of Helter Skelter (both confusion and a slide ride in Britain) led to the revisiting of its franchise, the murders that made Bugliosi a household word (around the Bugliosi house) and Manson a name synonymous with murder, cultish madness and some decent hard rock songs, especially covers.


As is our custom, Robin reads the book and we discuss it, going over parts aloud, looking at the pics. Afterward I did a Wiki follow-up, noting the similarity between Susan Atkins nom de guerre Sadie Mae Glutz and Mona Simpson’s Muddy Mae Suggins after which we revisited the original movie with Steve Railsback playing crazy, crazy Charlie. For a TV outing, it was fairly comprehensive and held up better than I thought it would, damn these preconceptions of mine.


Anyway I decided to write a song about the implications of young women, still very much girls, and men, (note our pride in being good old boys) who had so little direction or apparent positive parental influence that they would so readily attach their very lives to that of such an obvious charlatan and thug.


As I write this I immediately think of religious and political leaders who placate millions with transparent fiction, who induce millions of men and women to take up arms against each other for the glory and benefit of a few. I think of the negligible impact I had on my children (though none have killed anyone to the best of my knowledge) and wonder what level of parenting can even be imagined as effective – many parents raise their kids believing that war is honorable, that soldiering is a noble profession, that killing based upon the words of total strangers is patriotic.


Charlie’s girls were soldiers, following blindly the instructions of the daddy they made for themselves to replace the one they never had. Or perhaps had too much of. Anyway, as the song took shape I realized it wasn’t about what I thought it was, but a more universal perception of the want which has plagued humanity from the beginning of time. It wasn’t about Manson as the father to his extended family, but about that lack which allows people like him to exist in such tragic abundance. It’s about


Daddy Issues

Position available

Apply yourself inside

Opening for a daddy

So many have applied

Promise ever unfulfilled

If history is a guide

Blind to the big picture

Just along for the ride

The first bit is quite easy

As opposites distract

A little huggy squeasy

Horny humans interact

Flirt assert insert exert

Precise yet inexact

Delight transforms to effort

Issues result from impact

Daddy issues quite a mess

Little babies big distress

Mammals have a cuddling inclination

Safety in daddy’s loving embrace

Some mommies spurn daddies’ adoration

A sad situation all too commonplace

Daddy can’t love us as he loves mommy

State regulations and mommies insist

Daddies hit hard by mommy’s rejection

Find children in ways hard to resist

Sad children starving for adult approval

The most perverse of daddies will enlist

In actions resulting in childhood removal

What choice is there in the kiss or the fist

Daddy issues troubling mess

Some types undress to impress

A challenge why would daddy dis you

To hope in absence daddy miss you

Or that in public he won’t dismiss you

He’ll wipe your weeping eyes with tissue

Or hold you close and even kiss you

It appears we have a daddy issue

Daddy issues such a mess

Another case where more is less

Daddy had a daddy likely worse than he

Everybody’s got a place to learn debauchery

We know bad behavior is learned in custody

What’s the difference anyplace if you’re too young to flee

Enslaved to a notion, another’s property

The coin toss of creation extant in biology

Tragic repercussion or commonality

In overcoming daddy must we bask in misery

Some will go Gomorrah, others live in sodomy

Some places it’s a sacrament, others a felony

Daddy issues sticky mess

When you’re held under duress

My daddy beat me with a belt

His daddy beat him with his fist

Frustration in the pain that’s felt

Anger unable to resist

When daddy’s having fits

He hits and hits and hits

When daddy’s losing bouts

He shouts and shouts and shouts

When daddy is three sheets

He beats and beats and beats

When daddy’s delight dies

He cries and cries and cries

Unable to face his fears

Daddy disappears

Daddy issues some big mess

All must crumble under stress

When he’s home he hurts you

When he’s gone you hurt yourself

Each time daddy deserts you

He perverts your mental health

The longing for a father

Our shared human lament

The struggle, toil and bother

Around which every brain is bent

Daddy issues one more mess

Many urges to repress

Our father who art in service

Hallowed be thy war

For war makes daddy duties

So easy to ignore

Is it peace or isolation

That you’re fighting for

Our father who art in labor

Hallowed be thy work

The effort maintaining income

Makes parenting easy to shirk

Schools and gangs can baby sit

An always useful perk

Our father who art in business

Hallowed be thy employ

Exacting such grand profits

Provides the distance you enjoy

New cars can compensate

For the lives you destroy

Our father who art in debt

Hallowed be thy arrears

Feed your children on regret

Wean them with your fears

A shame to blame your offspring

As off course your life veers

Our father who art in hiding

Hallowed be thy hidey hole

Influence huge but negligible

When taken as a whole

So many wretched in the wings

Prepared to fill that role

Daddy issues life’s big mess

Guess you’re ready to confess

As adults we must face the facts

Of which we’re so afraid

Daddy didn’t want us

He just wanted to get laid


© 2010

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