One Headlight
A song for the kidney donor playlist. Drive it home with one headlight - or one kidney. Whatever works!
I was listening to “One Headlight” by the Wallflowers and it struck me as a song about donating your kidney. Wikipedia thinks it’s about other things. But it easily fits the organ donation scene.
At first, the singer is contemplating a friend’s death due to an organ disease. (He says “heart,” but that’s because it’s more poetic than “kidney”). So there he is, visualizing the aftermath - wandering in a cemetery if we accept the death sentence that is Kidney disease. But he can’t accept it. Her so dead, him alive but depressed, there’s got to be something better. In the middle. So he calls in Cinderella (the transplant team, checking if the shoe fits aka if the organ is a match…such metaphor!)
Hey presto! The chorus is obvious. Once you donate your kidney, you’re left with one. And your friend has one. You each have one…headlight, and can drive home. Voila!
Lyrics:
So long ago, I don’t remember when
That’s when they say I lost my only friend
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery treesI seen the sun comin’ up at the funeral at dawn
The long broken arm of human law
Now it always seemed such a waste, she always had a pretty face
So I wondered how she hung around this placeHey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There’s got to be something better than
In the middle
But me & Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlightShe said it’s cold
It feels like Independence Day
And I can’t break away from this parade
But there’s got to be an opening
Somewhere here in front of me
Through this maze of ugliness and greed
And I seen the sun up ahead at the county line bridge
Sayin’ all there’s good and nothingness is dead
We’ll run until she’s out of breath
She ran until there’s nothin’ left
She hit the end, it’s just her window ledgeHey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There’s got to be something better than
In the middle
But me & Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlightWell this place is old
It feels just like a beat up truck
I turn the engine, but the engine doesn’t turn
Well it smells of cheap wine, cigarettes
This place is always such a mess
Sometimes I think I’d like to watch it burn
I’m so alone and I feel just like somebody else
Man, I ain’t changed, but I know I ain’t the same
But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin’ dreams
I think of death, it must be killin’ meHey, hey hey come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There’s got to be something better than
In the middle
But me & Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight