Some of my lovely friends, or, some nice young ladies who let me stand next to them long enough to take a photo.
Hey guys. For those of you that don’t know, I recently received my exam results and I’ve graduated with a 2:1 in English Language! I’m very happy and to be honest, I’m more proud of my friends, many of whom I’ll no longer get to see every week, now that university is over. It is only fitting that I’d mention you all in a blog post though guys, I’ll genuinely miss the “oh, you should write a blog”-based winding up that so many of you enjoy indulging in!
Since getting my results the other day and realising that this phase of my life really is coming to an end, especially with so many close friends packing up and getting ready to travel to other bits of the country (and some to other countries altogether) to start the next stages of their lives, I’ve been thinking about “Alice’s Song” (fitting and ironic, since Alice is one of those close friends, though if anything she’s moving nearer to where I live rather than farther away).
When I first wrote it, I was thinking about friends I briefly drifted away from and friends I barely see anymore. Some of us grew apart through time, others simply through circumstance. In the case of others still, it was quick and I never saw it coming and I regret not doing more to maintain our friendship, as it was always, and remains to this day, very dear to me. At that stage of my life, that’s the core of what Alice’s Song meant to me.
Now it means something more still. The song acts like some sort of…memory collector, proving to only be more applicable to my life and the way I see my life the older I get, even just at the age of 24. Over the years, it describes my friends better, and better describes how I feel about them, whether that be about saying goodbye to them or spending valuable time in their company. Achieving that special level of drunkenness that caused me to attempt to dance at our Graduation Ball the other night only lends the later sections of this song more resonance still, for me anyway. Here are some of the words:
The birthday cake is going stale
And all that’s left of your old toy chest are the rusty nails
You’ve got no idea where you put all those old cards you received
But that’s not what you’ll remember; it’s the time you spent together
With the people who brought colour to the memories of your life.
I know we’re all too busy now to meet up every week
To exchange our witty repartees and kisses on the cheek
So instead we’ve got our twitty little updates and we tweak
Our facebook pages though the days just seem to slip away, as we forget
That once you called me brother and I told the same to you
That your wife became my sister, as did all her sisters too
That we loved each other dearly as we’d dance all through the night
But that we might live forever, for one more day
The birthday cake is going stale
And all that’s left of your old toy chest are the rusty nails
You’ve got no idea where you put all those old cards you received
But that’s not what you’ll remember; it’s the time you spent together
With the people who brought colour to the memories of your life.
I know I’m a big jessie, but it really has been an absolute pleasure to spend the last few years getting to know so many of you. Whether we’ve been friends from the start or have only become friends in the past few weeks, I wish you all the best of luck in whatever you do next. From now on, you’ll all be in that song when I sing it.
(Incidentally, that’s also the line I’ll use when I show up in your home towns, at your houses, needing a place to stay after playing a tiny gig in your local pub. No sorry, I don’t have any money, but here, have a CD. Are you going to eat that? Thanks.)
You are all, and I know YOU know I mean it when I say, just so very braw. Thanks,
love Campbell
x
(P.S. Jen, if you’re reading this, shut up)
