Good Riddance to Good Riddance, or was it?

Just when you think you have attained something better!

A strange tale from my musical experiences unfolds below.

The good riddance I wanted rid of

There I was, and there was my friend who introduced me to Green Day.

I had thought I was making an excellent mutual deal when I gave her two albums by said band, Insomniac and Nimrod, for Christmas. It was for the entertainment of us both.

But, unfortunately for ballad detractors like me, she loved the song off the latter album, Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), which features just an acoustic guitar and some violin. Even the much later acoustic Green Day song Ordinary World sounds perky after Good Riddance.

So, always it would play with the other songs we liked off that album. At the end of the song immediately before it on the album, King for a Day, I would run off.

Green Day must be right in their pessimism! Even their music is jinxed!

Your new friend, the king for the day, invited himself aboard your ship of imagination? I suppose I can get why you interpreted it that way. But what do you mean the king is under attack?

It is complicated, sir.

So, while I was shuffling songs about a week into June 2018, I found out in this way that King for a Day was on the way. I had not listened to it off my own iPod, and was pleased to see that I was going to get to know it better. I went back, listened to the song I already knew was coming, then, when King for a Day actually started, checked to see what would follow it . . . and immediately regretted my choices around King for a Day.

The worst thing that could have happened did happen: A pipe organ blast would fill my ears unless I turned the volume all the way down by the moment King for a Day ended. (Okay, I can hear you now: what? Well, that song got rocky after that opening, and so I gave it forgiveness, but kept a preference to mute it for the first few seconds.) And this was the song I had been fleeing from the end of so that I would not recognize when it was about to end, as I did not know it well enough. What was I thinking? I could have waited to flee until Good Riddance had actually started. It would not have hurt, hearing just a little acoustic plunking. The lesson I have practiced ever since became clear, that if I want to get to know a song better, I should choose it myself.

Anyway, back where I was, I was reduced to yelling OH NO! at my iPod as I skipped back. I spent all of King for a Day keeping my screen lit, watching wide-eyed how close I was to the end of the song, fingers tapping furiously on the edge of my iPod. I did turn the volume off in time, but of all the times I have saved myself from actually hearing that organ note, I have to say that was the worst.

And there was the band name Styx. Or perhaps the river.

(Addendum: Once the River Styx had passed, the next song I got was Teenage Overdose. Given my lack of interest in parodying King for a Day, I consider Deranged Overdose to be my revenge.)

In-character thoughts

So much for asking my new friend, the king for the day, to invite himself aboard the S.S. Imagination when he was ready. He did not think to until it was an emergency - and how difficult that made things for me, trying to know when to pull the soundproof door shut.

Then, when I was ready, I threw that door open. The cymbals shook in a sudden rush, and then it was this story from the bouncing drums part onward, all over again.

That is, other than what the fates had decided.

Deep in that nightmare world

And so I ended up, the imaginary voice getting into my head, and we went on like this.

Of course, I do realize I just have myself to blame, making decisions that would allow fates like you to come through.

Yes, your odd decisions. You can see why such instrumentation is so much more popular without an organ. Besides, you would really rather hear about a sad old man than someone having the time of their life?

It is not that so much as whether any rock is in there.

Still, you are missing a rare opportunity to hear Green Day sing something uplifting, instead getting this father whose life is a ship that has never been to sea, well. . .

Better than the Green Day song about the real father who died, which you will notice is not on my iPod either. At least this song is supposed to be there.

And then I could shape the stuff of the imagination, being fired by what lyrics lay beyond that organ, how much it resembled this one tale out of Pirates of the Caribbean, calling that fanciful combination of words, sail eternally, treasure. All that nasty stuff, whipped back by strands of figurative gems. Even if it causes trouble, I stand by what I have chosen.