NEEDY PEOPLE NEED DANCE MUSIC

Needy people, and who isn’t one, have their favorite toe tappers.

Some are sad, some defiant, some just lost in the shuffle.

But we all remember the one song that hit at just the right time.

Then another for another time, and another and another and another.

Whew, it’s needy time.

The real need starts in high school:

Nobody knows where my Johnny has gone
But Judy left the same time
Why was he holding her hand
When he’s supposed to be mine?

It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to
Cry if I want to
You would cry too, if it happened to you

There’s Johnny, there’s Judy, and there you go for a good long cry.

But don’t worry, it won’t last forever.

All the time you spent together and your friends drifted off because she was more important than them?

Now you’re adrift in a huge blank time all alone.

You either embrace it, or start making stuff up.

There’s a girl in college a year later who looked just like her.

She shows you a picture of her old boyfriend who looks just like you, but not as tall.

This happens in a dorm room full of students male and female all undressing to go out and streak the campus in 1974 fall term.

After that you don’t even remember being sad.

Does it work like that every time? No, but it should.

It Gets Worse For Needy People

If I think I see someone I know, or had known in another time, I yell their name without looking directly at them.

I see them react from the side-eye.

When it isn’t them, but looks just like them?

I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I’d love you to love me
I’m beggin’ you to beg me
Didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I
See you cryin’ (cryin, cryin’)
Oh, didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I
See you cryin’ (cryin, cryin’)
Feelin’ all alone without a friend 
You know you feel like dyin’ (dyin’, dyin’)
Oh, didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I
See you cryin’ (cryin’, cryin’)

When you live long enough and pay attention you see all sorts of things that aren’t what they’re supposed to be, not who you thought they were.

But you still get that feeling and you don’t know why?

It’s because you’re one of the needy people.

But there are other names.

Lonely People Too

Raise your hand if you know lonely people who also live very active lives.

Sounds weird to me too, but they’re out there.

They’ve had trauma they keep hidden, they’re working on a healing process that challenges them daily.

Then they tell you about it and everything changes.

This is for all the lonely people
Thinkin’ that life has passed them by
Don’t give up until you drink from the silver cup
And ride that highway in the sky

This is for all the single people
Thinkin’ that love has left them dry
Don’t give up until you drink from the silver cup
You never know until you try

2

The difference between needy people and lonely people?

Most striking is the needy want you to know they’re needy, but probably not as needy as you think which is why they’re a poor choice for sharing friendship.

You try to help with what you know and in return get: “This just shows you don’t even know me.”

Lonely people are different; they don’t want you to know how lonely they are.

They laugh, they smile, but they are haunted, spooked even, by their unsettled past.

Their friends and neighbors and family flounder around with kindness and love and in return get a look of recognition, of ‘nice try but no.’

Go ahead and break the ice, try and break the ice.

Don’t be surprised when you hear, “What were you thinking? You don’t even know me.”

You Don’t Know Needy People?

How well does anyone know anyone?

You think you know someone right up until they do something horribly stupid.

Breaking up with you isn’t in their horribly stupid category, but we never know that.

We get this instead:

Going down the city sidewalk alone in the crowd
No one knows the lonely one whose head’s in the clouds

Sad faces painted over with those magazine smiles
Heading out to somewhere 
Won’t be back for a while

I’ll break it down for you. ‘Won’t be back for a while’ means they’re never coming back, will never be back, and you’d better believe it.

But you don’t believe it and keep seeing familiar faces and yelling names and checking with your side-eyed surveillance.

It’s not them, it’s never them, until you ask yourself, “What the hell am I doing?’

Concentrate On The Small Things

I was a high school junior in 1972 and this sounded like the right kind of future.

Meet a surprising girl who knew things and talked about it.

Waking up in the morning with her was a little foggy at seventeen since the only people I’d ever woken up in the same room with was my brothers.

She would have to be different.

Coming close together
With a feeling that I’d never known before in my time
She ain’t ashamed to be a woman or afraid to be a friend

I don’t know the answer to the easy way she opened every door in my mind
But dreaming was as easy as believing it was never gonna end
Loving her was easier than anything I’ll ever do again

Waking in the morning to the feeling of her fingers on my skin
Wiping out the traces of the people and the places that I’ve been
Teaching me that yesterday was something that I never thought of trying
Talking of tomorrow and the money, love and time we had to spend
Loving her was easier than anything I’ll ever do again

So that’s what I did, paid attention to the small things.

I remember a blue summer dress. Flower in her hair.

A few of the small things? Babies.

Go ahead and look at your baby pictures, your kids’ baby pictures, and your grand baby pictures if you’ve got them and then tell yourself how it all ended and you can’t believe it.

On the other hand, if it hasn’t ended, shows no sign of ending anytime soon, you’re still needy people.

Why? Ask your wife. Ask your husband.

Then ask yourself, but do it with kids around for the right answer.