When you have little kids, you find yourself discussing death a whole helluva lot. At those early ages, dying is just dying and the concept isn't anything more than a word. It's not a concept. It's just something that happens and there's no consequence to speak of. Heaven, as a concept, is even more ambiguous. It's something more like McDonald's. It's a place that people just go to, for cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets. The fear about heaven and/or dying, for little kids, we found out the other day, is not that it follows the heart stopping or involves such an event, it's the issue of - if the dinosaurs all died, doesn't that logically mean that they'll be waiting for us to die and come to heaven? Now, when you're battered with all kinds of pretty logical concerns about dying and heaven, on a daily basis, you do find yourself thinking about the whole thing a bit more yourself, like it or not. All theological beliefs aside, as the years invade more and more and the gray hairs creep onto the scalp, it's harder not to think about what time does have in store. While you can be comfortable with the inevitable - just as you can resign yourself to the uncontrollable situation of being in a plane tens of thousands of feet above the ground and whatever's going to happen is going to happen no matter what you do - the consideration of the unknown is still a bit paralyzing when put into context.
It's something that Austin, Texas, songwriter David Ramirez is tremendous at teeing up. As a writer, exact and he's cutting. He's humble, he's exhausted and he's shaky. It all adds up to storylines that are more than relatable. They're livable. They're exhilarating in their honesty. "An Introduction," specifically, is a song that brings everything right into your kitchen. It puts it right in your face. He sings:
"They raised me on doughnuts and coffee
Under fluorescent lights we watched outdated movies
It smelled like a hospital but no one was being cured
Tell me where to find the Lord
Tell me where to find
Tell me where to find the Lord
How the hell am I supposed to knock on Heaven if I can't even see the door
Tell me where to find the Lord
So I traded in my pew for a bar stool
Trying to find redemption in the mind of the youth
We'd sit tall with our cigarettes and disheveled uniforms
Oh I never, no I never saw the Lord
My biggest fear in the world
Is introducing myself in the grave
After all my years living free
I don't have much to say."
You freeze for a minute. It's cold and it's hot. It just gets you, overpowers you, as you start thinking, " You sure don't want to take a chance on this shit, do you." Believer or not, this is the worry, not that you might be greeted by dinosaurs, but that the curtains close down here and that there's a different set of lights that go on and then there need to be reasons, or a suitable resume. That's when you feel restless at night. Ramirez isn't the only one.