The Puppet

February HOUSE Chart (Beatport On Fire)

Best Shape Of My Life

Written and performed by Hugh O'Brien
Text and audio optionally licensed under CC3-BY or CC0. Your preference.

Please pardon the dodgy Southern accent.

One
There's a lot of things in this world a man can gamble with, some of 'em he might even win at, but ask any decent man and he'll tell 'ya there ain't no flush good 'nuff to win back his time. 

Nobody did know quite as much about time as my grandpa. Clocks were his trade, and he made 'em well, for any man rich enough to pay 'im. He made watches for them men, but he made time for me.

I remember asking him once where time comes from, and he hands me his own watch and says "see for yourself". My young eyes poured over every detail 'that watch, but I couldn't see nothing that made time. There was a spring wheel, used bounce back and forth real quick, like it was alive, I told him that, and he says if it were alive it'd be going somewhere 'stead a just spinnin' round all day long. Half-hour goes by, more or less, I've about had enough, and I says so, and he says "How long was you looking?", "Ages" I say, "'spossin you tell me how long by the watch", so I look, and it ain't been two minutes. "Time comes from a man" he says, "clocks just makes sure it's going the right direction".

Two
Growin up a farmer’s a whole lot o’ work, and real bad news for your back. There’s plenty of ground that needs turning, and when you ain’t hoeing yourself you’re fighting the mules, who know well enough that that plough of yours ain’t gonna be no fun for them. Half the year is spent putting crop down, and the other half, well, you take it right back up again. That’s the way of it, the cycle.

A farmer’ll take all the help he can get, but it ain’t ever enough. ‘Bout that time, some clever folk had the idea to make machines to help. Grandpa was real fond of them machines, saw how they were gonna free up his time. His old man wasn’t much for ‘em though, saw em as nothing but newfangled tricks gettin’ in the way of real farmin’. Grandpa, was young then, plenty of room in that head, and even though he was set in his ways, his pop still knew them engines was the way forward. And if wasn’t gonna his way, it’d be grandpas.

Now them old models didn’t run too steady, even a bit of dirt in the oil would bring ‘em clackering down. Grandpa’s job was keeping em ticking. He liked to sit and watch em run, gears and belts and such hummin' away to themselves without a care in the world. It's got a purpose he'd say, a job to do and I’ll yell ya, it's gonna do it. It ain't never gonna take a dislike to ya', and if it ever let's you down, well, one look will tell you why. But for all their power, they’re real fragile. Sorta brings a balance to them. 

Now when a man knows his job, he can’t help doing it. Around town he couldn’t walk by a rattlin engine without stopping to fix it. If something were squealing you’d see him cringe, like he was hearing a creature in pain. He loved puttin’ ‘em right though. To a mechanic, it'd be maintenance, but to him, it was care. He wanted to see ‘em run, do what they was meant to do. 

It was good for a time, worked out that he could do more good in fixin’ them engines then he could on the farm.  Didn’t want to want to turn his back on his pop though.  That problem didn’t last long, his pop, well, he got old real quick, his  body started givin up on him. Grandpa couldn’t fix  that anymore than the doctor could. The farm’s too much work for one man, no matter how many engines he has. And it was his pop that he loved, not the ground. So he buried him where he’d asked, got a good price for the land, and moved on.

Three
He had intended on buying himself an education. But when he got to the city, he found that livin’ didn’t come cheap. But he set up with what he had, and got to lookin’ for work.

City life was strange to him, back home, each man had a trade. You knew it, and they knew it. You could tell there was skill in their work, because you could see it, plain as day. Passin’ by the baker’s, you’re gonna see ‘im kneading. The butcher cleaving. Out here though, it was all storefronts. All the work was done in the back. Sure, that meat probably tastes the same, but it’s just a thing on a shelf, instead of the work of a man’s skill. At first, he wasn’t too sure he could trust any of it, he thought, if they’re hiding something there’s probably a good reason. Bad workmanship, or who knows what? But when he asked, the baker was more than happy to show him round. No secrets, he said, just that folk don’t like seeing the work, just the bread.

Findin’ work didn’t take long, city folk were real fond of their cars, and real short of patience. They’d manage to burn out all manner of parts, he hated seein’ it, but he wasn’t gonna turn down the work. 

Now, an engine’ll tell ya when something’s wrong, it’ll sound different. But these folk just didn’t listen, or didn’t want to. They’d places to be, and got no problem treating the engine poor in order to get there. It’s just a machine I s’pose, but they was doin’ real damage. He thought, maybe they don’t hear a difference, all just ‘engine sounds’ to them. So he’d repair ‘em, try and explain how to not to break em again, but they was never too interested, just wanted to pay him and get back to driving. 

Every now and then new designs’d come through, and he’d get real excited because he loved working them out, more power, smoother cycles, they just kept getting better. I reckon he found his peace in them engines, like a kid lost in painting. He could get a sense of the man who designed em, and felt a kinship of sorts. You and I wouldn’t see nothin but parts, but we're lookin at that painting and seeing nothing but paint.

When he wasn’t fixin’ he was building. You see, he’d taken notice of what gave up in an engine.  Cos now matter how clever they were, they always needed fixin’. He puzzled on it, for a time, and reckoned that there was nothing wrong with the designs. They were good, and getting better, but the folk that ran them, well, they kinda stayed the same. 

Now an engine that wouldn’t let itself be broken, would be a real fine thing indeed.

Four
Of course, regular folk build machines too, but they don't tend to call 'em that. They call ‘em rules, laws, that sort of thing. Was all the same to him, but he never much liked what they made. 

He’d been studying the city, like it was one of his engines, and he could see why it got ugly. 
He’d see a law man wantin' power more than he wanted peace, or a rule maker takin’ a dislike to certain folk. You see, in a bad design, one bad gear can knock out a lot of good ones. Grandpa felt a need to put things right, he wanted to see the whole city hummin' like he knew it could.  He just had that type of mind, couldn't be lookin at somethin' on its own, and not seein' how it connected. A man like that's no good in a world full of people, cos most folk are real poor at making sense. Sorta thing that'd make a man feel alone. 

He started talking about what he saw, and how to fix it, but folk just didn't want to hear. Men at the desks said it’s just the rules, men up top said it was what the people wanted. Every now and then a few folk would get up in arms about something they read in the papers, so the men up top would tweak the engine, and call themselves heroes, but with every change some man bears more and another bears less. One belt tightens, and another starts to squeak. Those folk with the raw deal would get angry for a time, like anyone does when they’re let down by something, without knowin' why. But then those that could, would just go back about their business. To them, it wasn't a machine full of parts, it was just people. 

He’d tried telling ‘em how to make a better machine, but what man wanted to think of himself as a gear?  Years he spent in that city, but no one ever saw the way he did, and they soon got tired a hearin' about it. "Politics is about people" they'd say. A man'll never believe something he don't want to hear. The day he learned that, he packed up shop and walked away. He’d spent a lot of time trying to put that city right, good years lost, trying to get them to see, but that ain't how it works, so he promised not to lose any more.

Five
He travelled for a time, picking up work along the way. Came to rest in a town, not too different to his home. He’d left a lot of hope behind him, but there’s nothing like a wife and family to bring that back, and he still had his craft, still knew what made him happy. 

Plenty of folk were in need of engines back then, still are today, I guess horsepower is more important than brainpower. But an engine's always trying go somewhere or change something, suckin' up fuel and makin' an awful racket. He might have been a man like that once, but not any more. The greys and wrinkles lookin' back at him in the mirror wouldn't let him forget what he'd lost. So he turned his skills to making machines that were small and quiet, and helped remind a man that his time’s a fleeting thing.

They mock you, 'ya know? Clocks. Tickin round and round, doing exactly what they're meant to do, and doin' it well. They ain't got no pesky hopes or dreams to be worrying about. And they'll still be tickin', long after you've stopped. They don't feel the time passing, they sure as hell don't feel old, they just...tick. 

Anyways, he bought his tools, even built a few himself, and got to building', each one different to the last. But it wasn't 'building'' to him, it was craftin'. I don't much see the difference. They meant a lot to him, he made sure to put a bit of himself into each one. I’ll tell ya, you don't see work like this no more, them clocks had feelin', I 'member a jittery one, all manner of springs moving every which way, that he made for a friend's young boy. And another dull, rigid and stony faced like the accountant that wanted it. Even made a cuckoo clock for grandma, so as he'd know when to look up from his shed to the kitchen and catch her smilin'.

Never was one to say much 'bout how he was feelin', reckon he didn't have the words, but you could see it in the work. Plump or skeletal, flourished or sleek, even the sound of the damn ticking. He’d confide in the work, show it how he felt, make the feelin' part of thing itself, and it would always reflect back, like it understood. His tools listened to his ideas, in a way folk never did. Always eager to try somethin' new, and always honest about their failings. 

Six
Now grandma was a different kind of person, one for seeing someone for what they are, not what they could be. She'd grown up tending horses, not like them mules grandpa had,  and like them horses she either took a liking to someone or she didn't. For her, the world was best seen on the back of a stallion, racing through an open field. A noble beast bearing you on your own adventure. The smell of crisp dry grass tickling her nose, the warmth of sunlight washing over her skin and the happiest sound in her world, the footfall of a steady run. When her mind would wander, that’d be where it went.

You see, what I’m trying to get at, is that I think they both loved the same thing, not time, but now. Grandpa never wanted to forget how slippery it was, and grandma wanted nothing more than to live in her galloping moments. Not much need for a watch when you're on horseback. No need at all to be reminded that you're just wormfood in the end. No need, you see, because you're living. And there ain't no more living you could be doing than what you're doing right then. But not everyone can ride, and not everyone can hold it in their head as a measuring stick for the rest of life.

I don’t imagine there’s many  that know what they really want to be doing. It's a hard question, and that damn ticking don’t exactly help you answer it. That's all the clock does, taunt you to live a better now. It don't give it to you of course, and even looking at the damn thing is one less second you coulda been doing something else.

She didn't much care for them, cold bits of metal bouncing around for no good reason. Pretending to be alive but forgetting they're metal, forgetting all the beauty that life asks. Sure he gave them a polish, made them glisten, but that's never gonna keep you company, or nuzzle your hand chasing after a bag of oats.

But he knew that. And she knew that he did, because he'd come watch her ride, or go pet them when he was puzzling something out. And she often caught him gazing out at them from his little shed, not with the  scrunched up face of working something out, but with admiration. They’d be chasing each other up and down that field all day long, living now, and living happy. He'd fade back in after a while, brought back by the ticking, and he'd wonder how much happier horses were without time. 

That was how he looked at her, too. Someone who knew joy, and, heh, as anybody who does, shares it. She could be tending her animals, or baking some treats for the young ones and she just knew joy. Never cared to know what time it was, what difference, when every moment was as good as the last, and wasn't showing any signs of stopping. He didn't put any hands on her cuckoo clock.

Seven
He'd left his city life far behind, he was tired of that look they all wore, like they didn’t trust each other. Made sense though, you don’t trust something if you don’t know how it works. Can’t see the parts ticking.

So they lived in a quiet town, with quiet people. He felt calm there, used to take a moment at the bench on the main street, just to look at it all. Folk knew your name, and your business. There's a lot to be said for knowing a man's business. Takes away a whole lot of worry if you know what he's up to, even if he's not up to any good. 

Many years went by like that, quietly, then one day, some clever Japanese folk made a new type of watch. He ordered one from a magazine. The world was catching up with him. He sat and stared at the thing, it had no face. Just a rectangle of darkness. There was a button you could push, and then some bits of numbers would light up. Just about enough to make ‘em out. Went dark after, made no sound.He took it apart quick enough, wasn't very well made. He found a silver coin, and a black square. Magazine said that was where the magic was. He sat and looked at them for a time too. And then he threw ‘em out. 

No man had made that. No craft or care in the thing. All it does is tell the time. There were no gears to see, all hidden in that little black square. A man can’t admire a secret. 

Not long after, grandpa died peacefully, long overdue as he used to say, and his clocks, well they just kept on ticking.  And then for a time, my old man was wearing a fixed up watch from Japan.

The Puppet

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