Paul Revere and The Raiders: Kicks Lyrics
Songwriters: Cynthia Weil; Barry Mann
Well you think you're gonna find yourself a little piece of paradise
But it ain't happened yet, so girl, you better think twice
Don't you see no matter what you do
You'll never run away from you
And if you keep on runnin'
You'll have to pay the price
Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/p/paul_revere_and_the_raiders/kicks.html
I’ve always loved the song, “Kicks,” by Paul Revere and the Raiders. It came out an inappropriate time – in the mid-sixties, when drug experimentation was just becoming the thing to do. I don’t remember the song becoming very popular, but that’s not a surprise. Who wants to hear that you can’t be satisfied by external phenomena when that’s all you live for?
I come from a family of addicts. Some of us are addicted to music, some are addicted to romance, some are addicted to nature. I had an eighty-year-old grandmother who almost fell off a mountain once trying to gather the flowers she was addicted to.
Unfortunately, some of us have had more serious additions. Alcohol is a big problem in my family, and continues to plague us like locusts from days of old . People ask me why I don’t drink and I long to say, “Do you want to hear about the generations of alcoholics in my family?” Instead, I find myself sipping cranberry and tonic to deflect questions. People think I’m having a real drink, so they feel comfortable with their own bad habits.
Someone recently gave me a link to an article from NPR about a book by David J. Linden (http://www.npr.org/2011/06/23/137348338/compass-of-pleasure-why-some-things-feel-so-good). In his book, “The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning and Gambling Feel So Good,” Linden discusses the root causes of addiction. I am definitely going to read that book! I’m sorry to say that I can relate a story of excess to every one of those categories.
From the article, I discover that the reason for my family’s addictions may be because we have genetically blunted dopamine systems. Ah ha! So that’s why I couldn’t stop throwing those nickels into the slot machine the one and only time my husband let me into a casino. I followed him around all night begging, “Just give me ten dollars, ten bucks. What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “We had a deal. You lost your money – you’re done!” Good thing we didn’t have ATM cards back then.
But it’s not my fault! Right? I have an addictive personality. I’ve had vodka twice in my life. The first time I was fifteen. So throwing up on the floor wasn’t all that unexpected. The second time I met some friends at a bar for St. Patrick’s Day, and had a drink called a “Belfast Blast,” which was pretty. St. Patty’s day pretty. Red on the top and green on the bottom. Pretty. I had one lousy drink. One!
I drove home from the bar and went right to sleep. The next morning, my brother-in-law, the mechanic, stood at my bedroom door. “Your car’s out of gas.”
I sat up and stared at him. “Huh?” Oh, my aching head.
“And your battery’s dead,” he added.
Apparently I had pulled up to the house, got out of the car and went to bed, leaving the car running, the lights on, the windshield wipers on. It’s amazing I made it home at all! Haven’t celebrated St. Patrick’s Day since, and I’m Irish.
Linden is comforting when he says, “Addiction is not fundamentally a moral failing — it's not a disease of weak-willed losers. When you look at the biology, the only model of addiction that makes sense is a disease-based model, and the only attitude towards addicts that makes sense is one of compassion.” I try to have compassion for the youngest members of my family currently dealing with their addictions. But sometimes I get so frustrated with them.
I have to admit, though, methamphetamine has added a whole new dimension to the problem. Whenever I get frustrated with them for their continual screw-ups, I have to remind myself that the kind of speed they have access to didn’t even exist when I was in college. And yet look at the stupid mistake I made. I still managed to convince myself that I was being practical as well as frugal – eating speed was cheaper than eating food. And look at all the studying I got done! When my weight plummeted to 115 pounds (I’m 5’10”) and I literally got lost on the main street of my own town, I knew it was time to get it together.
The problem with addictive personalities is that you never have enough. I want to say to my niece and nephew, “You will never find what you’re looking for. Stop looking. Turn around – you have loving families waiting for you to come back to reality. You get one life – this is it.” But do I dare to pronounce such a simplistic philosophy to two people who are on the verge of losing everything? Wouldn’t that be the height of hypocrisy?
Yes, of course it’s hypocritical, but the fact is, I love them dearly. So I’m going to say it anyway. KNOCK IT OFF, YOU GUYS. Stay in jail, go back into treatment, lie in your bed till you stick to it if you have to. Whatever it takes. But find something better to be addicted to. Coffee, chocolate, books, your children. Hey, you have a genetic predisposition to flowers. You don’t need kicks.
Never thought an anti-drug song from the sixties (now THERE’s an oxymoron) would prove to be so relevant in the 21st Century! But there it is, rock fans.
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