As I sat in a drunken stupor

my ear propped

against the loudspeaker

Ray Davies of The Kinks

reached out of the stereo

and grabbed my attention:


"Once I get started I go to town"


I forgot the fact that

I hadn't talked to anyone

since I started emptying

the brown bottle in my hand


With my whole lonely

sentimental teenage being

I took in the following

and remembered it vividly to this day:



"And I don't want to live my life like everybody else,
And I won't say that I feel fine like everybody else,
'Cause I'm not like everybody else,
I,m not like everybody else"