“When Nobody Else Can Understand Me…When Everything I Do Is Wrong!”

by Paul Tristram

It’s the only two lines of the song that he knew
or could be bothered to sing, and he only did that drunk.
It took me years to figure out that it actually belonged
to a famous tune by Elvis Presley (of all people!)
Up until then, I had just assumed that it was a bit of drunken
mumbling that had got stuck in his pissed-up head.
It’s funny but it always reminded me of someone saying
‘I’m Innocent’ or ‘Not Guilty’ when it was obvious
to everyone, including themselves, that it was an open
and shut case and that they were the opposite of ‘Victim.’
But anyway, I digress, I now have the song in question,
I never paid for it, I stole it just like he would have wanted.
I played it last night on repeat, whilst drinking a bag of beer
to him (The daffodils are out, which means it’s his birthday!)
but it wasn’t the same hearing someone else singing it
…I needed to hear that familiar, Welsh, drunken drawl.
I decided to get one of my own and settled on Blitz’s
‘Never Surrender, Never Give In…Never Let The Enemy Win!’
but I just ended up frightening the poor dog and falling
backwards over a coffee table whilst pogoing on one foot.
“Happy Birthday you Old Bastard, this twelfth pint’s for you,
they don’t make ‘em like YOU anymore and thank God for that,
there ain’t enough police and Britain’s running out of prison space!”