A Few Good Memories Will Do

I was doing the dishes the other day. I say that to distinguish between days where the dishes get done and days when they don’t. When I wash dishes or do any kind of housework that doesn’t involve a vacuum cleaner, I like to listen to music. I find I enjoy it more when my hands are occupied with something they know how to do without me.

While I was washing dishes, Spotify’s AI DJ played Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me in Your Heart.” It’s a song I’ve heard perhaps twenty or thirty times but listening to it this last time made more of an impression on me than usual. For the first time, I got it.

For those of you who may not know, when Zevon recorded the album it’s on, The Wind, he was dying of lung cancer, and he knew he was dying. The album, and especially “Keep Me in Your Heart,” is a swan song. But it isn’t a grand farewell. There’s remarkably little grandeur in it.

Zevon was capable of grand themes and grand gestures in his music. “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” is about a mercenary fighting in the Congo War who, as the eponym suggests, has his head blown off by the CIA. What’s left of him goes looking for payback. “Lawyers, Guns, and Money” – well, do I really need to explain? “Werewolves of London” is about a supernatural murder spree.

“Keep Me in Your Heart” isn’t about anything so grandiose. It’s a request, almost a plea, for the specific person hearing the song to just remember him now and then. It’s unassuming. Humble. Life will go on without him. He knows that. Being remembered once in a while is enough of a mark to leave behind.

As I finished up the dishes, I thought, yeah, that’s plenty. I’ll settle for a few good memories. Hell, I’d settle for a few good limericks. I don’t have any illusions about being remembered for finally writing The Great American Novel. I just want to entertain people. If you read something I’ve written, and you get whatever joke I set up, that’s enough. I’ve done what I came here to do.

As always, thanks for reading. I hope you have someone who will keep you in their heart for a while.