When Crazy is True
I stayed in a mental hospital in '84
I told my story and they locked the door
I said there was a movie that was R-rated
I said I was despised, maybe even hated.
I said I had been called a Hebe and a swine
though technically, dirty dancing is not a crime
I said the movie spread, to Israel, the UK
and from sea to shining sea of the USA.
This was plainly bonkers, so they gave me Thorazine
and also ECT, which can wipe memories clean
I came out after eight weeks, chastened but not healed
I knew there was a movie, and to that I had no shield.
Ten years later came delusion number two
That under people's noses a new Mafia grew
I said it had drugs that lifted libido high
They put it in my drink, don't ask me why.
Maybe they had a sense of humor, maybe some spite
Criminals don't respect privacy, or any other right
Besides that I had claimed that I wasn't so bad
To a gleeful criminal, sure outcome would be rad.
I told the police, I told whoever would hear
But it got crazier yet, like a gun after a spear
I said Mafia could spray drugs through the air
No escaping that, didn't anybody care?
So naturally this landed me in mental ward two
Other patients knew this was nuts, for them plainly cuckoo.
I got to hear their stories though, tragedies in sight
Two women I remember, from day went into night.
One woman had simply slipped on a sidewalk, hit her head
Damaged her brain, bright future now was dead
Another woman fell off a bike, same kind of damage there
Perpetually now in this ward, didn't have a prayer.
She'd go to the payphone in the hall, her way to rebel
I gave her some hope of exit, though I couldn't tell
She cried and said she felt hope, horizon gotten wide
But there were reasons she couldn't make it outside.
My roommate had drunk himself into a damaged brain
He'd ruined his career, caused family all this pain
Used to write jingles for ads, made a fortune that way:
But the demon alcohol took it all away.
So what is a mind? Just circuits that stray?
Misfiring signals that carry us away?
Was dancing my symptom, some chemical plea—
Or simply an unfortunate expression of me?
Even worse, is my story true?
Have some criminals come up with something new?
Drugs that knock you out, with an airborne spray
Take your keys, enter your room, take your soul away.
If so, it will be forever buried as a tale
Of a crazy man, a boat that lost its sail
I, who talked of delusions while on trains
To persuade the public there was thunder in the rain.
Is the iceberg under our lives, or just inside my mind
Is taking a madman seriously the best way to be kind?
When do we heed warnings, when are they just static.
Two very divergent paths, until something dramatic.
I don't feel like dancing, preening, any more
Its like something turned off, someone shut a door
But I wake up every day, a sword above my head
A low-level living nightmare, an alarm code red.
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