On Long Walks and Great Lyrics

So Penelope Trunk's been kicking my ass to choose a blog topic. But that's OK. I think it's time anyway. After reading the last few posts, it seems that writing – or some facet of it – comes up in nearly every entry. So let's just settle this once and for all. InfernalMemo will be a blog about writing. Even the name alludes to the craft.

Onward. Today's topic: long walks and great lyrics.

A few weeks ago, I went on a really, really, REALLY long walk. Fifty-six kilometres around Cowichan Lake, to be exact. It was the second-longest twelve hours of my life. In a paroxysm of solidarity, I had decided to join a friend who was walking to raise money for brain cancer in honour of her late husband. Might've been easier just to shell out my donation, but I reasoned that I'd up her fundraising power by gathering pledges from my own network.

So we start at 5:00 in the morning from the Youbou town hall, a huge giggling gaggle of us in a fine mist of drizzle. We walk through the woods. Walk through the forest. Walk through the trees, then the clearcuts, then the trees, the forest and the woods again. (There were some thickets and groves in there, too.) Having split from my friend's fast-paced posse at the first checkpoint, I find myself blissfully alone with my iPod.

Three things I'll know for next time:

1. duct tape every inch of my feet before starting, not after I've been on the road for 10 km
2. train up properly, making sure I've prepared my poor, overtaxed hip flexors better, and
3. pick the right bloody music for my iPod.

I figure an entire day of walking will be a wonderful, peaceful time all to myself. No kids smashing each other over the heads with action figures; no deadlines pressing in; no kids smashing each other over the heads with action figures. (Oops: did I write that twice?) So I load up my iPod with as many flutes, harps and birds as I can find.

It is peaceful for the first couple of hours. The sun's coming up, my hips feel great and Deuter is zenning me out with his hands of light. An hour or so later, I've popped a couple of Advils and I'm dancing around on the path with all the other imaginary Single Ladies. (Yes, dancing. There are some songs that I just cannot keep still to.)

But the Beyonce buzz eventually wears off. And I don't feel like meditating any more, either. I'm craving more dance music, but there's none on my playlist.

A couple hours later, I'm good and pissed. My feet hurt, my hips hurt, my ultralite pack is pinching my shoulders, and I need something angry. I suffer through as many oversexed Chili riffs as I can. I listen to Feist's entire Let it Die album and decide that Mushaboom is the only good song on it. I was right three years ago, and I'm right today. Let that one die. I try a bit of Stevie Wonder, but by this time I'm not in the mood for happy boogie. I'll kill myself if I hear any more Jack Johnson. I skip Raffi, too.

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Here's the funny thing about listening to music through earbuds when you have absolutely nothing to do but walk. The music fills your head and precludes all thought of everything else. And you have no choice but to hear every word that's being sung. Jamiroquai? Mmmmm, nah. Simon & Garfunkel's At The Zoo: right on.

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Ah. Jane's Addiction. Perfect! I haven't listened to Nothing's Shocking in at least ten years. But after listening to the whole album and feeling completely sorry for myself that I'm no longer allowed to smoke, I decide that Perry Farrell incorporates young children into his lyrics a bit too frequently for me to feel completely at ease listening to their music ever again.

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Hm. I'm going to save the Hip until I really need them. I'll pass on Gordon Lightfoot for now... how about Great Big Sea? They're a bit of a cheery group, but can bang out a good ballad with lots of percussion and shouty vocals. I'm swept away by the sad story behind the Chemical Worker's Song but I find the rest of their songs to be too cutesy to take me out of my pain.

I listen to the whole album, but I need something deep and terrible right now, not a happy-slappy ale-swilling maritime band.

There's no Pearl Jam, no Johnny Cash, no Led Zeppelin, Smashing Pumpkins or Nirvana.

I've saved the best for last. It's all I've got. Even round two of Beyonce fails to excite my exhausted, screaming feet. Bring out the Tragically Hip. Maybe Gord Downie and his men can pull me out of myself and carry me the rest of this long hard road.

And by Christ, they do. I slide along inside their complex funkalicious grooves, rapt with the discovery of such head-splittingly good songwriting. I smell John Mellencamp in these chords, and I love it. It's not terrible music, but it's deep, and full of layers, and crammed with stuff to think about. Gord and the knights of the Hip carry me through the last agonizing miles, to the finish line, my time of 11:48, my prize bag, the most satisfying Whopper in the history of mankind, and several weeks of uncomfortable recuperation.

Was it worth it? Probably not, for the pain and the damage I've undoubtedly wreaked on my poor body. But it was an honour, and a challenge. And I learned a thing or two about what separates the merely good from the truly great.