Blogging consistently is tough!  I mean the discipline and focus it takes to…LOOK SQUIRREL!

See what I mean?

I’ll do my best to not let this page go fallow. For my first post I’m hopping in the “way back machine” and presenting this little gem recorded in 2005.  Perfect World was track #12 on the Motor Primitives debut album and was part of our repertoire from the very start.

Perfect World by the Motor Primitives

©Pam Barrett 2005

NOTE:  I wrote this song in 2001 and it bears no resemblance to a song by the same name penned by the Indigo Girls.

I started writing this song one night while watching Rebel Without A Cause.  The teenage angst oozing from this movie is truly overwhelming. Plato (played by Sal Mineo) was particularly compelling.  I started writing down phrases being spoken by the actors and the “bones” of the lyrics were inspired by the movie’s overarching sentiment.

Here’s dialog from a scene where Jim, Judy and Plato are in an uninhabited estate and pretending to be their own little idyllic family unit:

Like a surrogate family, Jim lies with his head in Judy’s lap, with Plato, the ‘child’ at their feet. Plato shares how he really has no mom and dad and has often run away from a troubled home. Jim catches Plato telling a concocted lie that his father is dead:

Plato: I used to lie in my crib at night and I’d listen to them fight.
Jim: Can you remember back that far? I can’t remember what happened yesterday. (He laughs) I can’t. How do you do it?
Plato: Oh, I had to go to a head-shrinker. Boy, he made me remember.
Jim: Did he?
Plato: Then my mother said it cost too much so she went to Hawaii instead.
Jim: Well, what’s your problem?
Plato: Oh, I don’t know. But-but I’m happy now, here. Oh, I wish we could stay here.
Judy: Plato, where’s your father now?
Plato: Oh, he’s dead. He was a hero in the China Sea.
Jim: (chuckling) You told me he was a big wheel in New York.
Plato: I did?

According to Plato, whether he’s literally dead or alive makes little difference: “Aw, what’s the difference. He might as well be dead anyway.” Judy rubs Plato’s head, comforting him: “It’s all right.” And she hums a lullaby to him, lulling him to sleep. Disenchanted with their own families and removed from the real world, the three teenagers act the part of their own warm, peaceful, idealized family. Plato views Jim and Judy as his chosen, substitute parents to replace his uncaring home situation – and he idolizes Jim in particular.

I found the dialog from the site Filmsite.org. Read more of it here.

You can get this song and more by the Motor Primitives at iTunes here.