Let’s start low key, THE LEFTOVERS is one of the best things you can let yourself be immersed by on TV. Yesterday I saw the final episode of the second season, and it left me stunned – thank you, unconscious, for reminding me to breathe again! I won’t give anything away here (my new talent), except that THE LEFTOVERS (that will end with season 3) might be for everyone who is interested in the things that matter beyond the mainstream of life’s decent tricks to fool you into an eternal comfort zone – especially, ha, when, from one moment to another, two percent of the world’s population has simply vanished.
Don’t start raising eyebrows now – thank you! – life is full of unsolved riddles, questions left unanswered, and the best sci-fi-mystery-stuff quite often approaches the darker sides at the bottom of the probability scale. It’s always the question how to handle it, and THE LEFTOVERS succeeds on every level. Deeply existenzial.
Now, the story I want to tell is a song: yesterday I discovered one of my secret favourite songs that I might have stored in some distant part of my limbic system, in a fucking defunct jukebox, or in the memory department of a long gone love affair that went completely wrong. Taking a short sidestep here, it is simply awesome to see Ray Donovan (in RAY DONOVAN, season 4) perform an old Bob Seger song in a karaoke show (moving from amateurish to fully being there, so to speak).
The way Kevin Garvey performs one of my secret, nearly forgotten favourite songs, is nothing less than overwhelming. He performs every line of that song as if his heart is broken in thousand pieces. There is no move from a shy start to a fully blossoming finale, he is in desparation mode, close to losing his breath, nearly passing out and dying a last time. Now here are the verses of that song, and, if you have a pale or coloured memory, just give it a try. No one gives a shit when you miss a note or invent a new song. Just give it meaning / sensuality. It’s your karaoke show, and, surprise, it’s your life.
I’m sitting in the railway station. / Got a ticket for my destination. / On a tour of one-night stands /my suitcase and guitar in hand. / And every stop is neatly planned / for a poet and a one-man band. / Homeward bound, I wish I was homeward bound, / Home where my thought’s escaping, / Home where my music’s playing, / Home where my love lies waiting silently for me. / Every day’s an endless stream / Of cigarettes and magazines. / And each town looks the same to me, / the movies and the factories / And every stranger’s face I see / reminds me that I long to be, / Homeward bound, / I wish I was homeward bound, / Home where my thought’s escaping, / Home where my music’s playing, / Home where my love lies waiting silently for me. / Tonight I’ll sing my songs again, / I’ll play the game and pretend. / But all my words come back to me / in shades of mediocrity / Like emptiness in harmony / I need someone to comfort me. / Homeward bound, / I wish I was homeward bound, / Home where my thought’s escaping, / Home where my music’s playingm / Home where my love lies waiting silently for me. / Silently for me.