This song is called The Real Life by John Mellencamp and appears on the Lonesome Jubilee album, released back in 1987.

I really like this song and I hope you like it too.  The lyrics about people who break out of the mould that society attempts to put them into – who seek real life instead of superficiality and labels.  This is what I am trying to write about with my Subversive Tips.

There’s the divorced middle-aged woman who makes her way back into having her own life and the corporate man who has done everything he is meant to, playing by the rules but now desires more from his life and who makes a career change.  Both want to live full lives and seek authenticity, rejecting labels assigned due to their age.

In the end we need to live out our lives as real people, making the most of the limited time that we have, making sure that we don’t just waste it “sitting around watching TV”.

Here are the lyrics, written by John Mellencamp – I intend no infringement of his rights.

The Real Life

Suzanne divorced her husband
She got the keys to the car and the home
But her friends were really his friends
No one stops by to see her much anymore
So one night she goes back down to the old haunts
That once upon a time were her own
She didn’t know nobody out there no more
And the whole experience just made her feel so old
She says:

I want to live the real life
I want to live my life close to the bone
Just because I’m middle-aged that don’t mean
I want to sit around my house and watch T.V.
I want the real life
I want to live the real life

Jackson Jackson was a good kid
He had four years of college and a bachelor’s degree
Started workin’ when he was 21
Got fed up and quit
When he was 43
He said, “My whole life
I’ve done what I’m supposed to do
Now I’d like to maybe do something for myself
And just as soon as I figure out what that is
You can bet your life I’m gonna give it hell”
He says:

Chorus

I guess it don’t matter how old you are
Or how old one lives to be
I guess it boils down to what we did with our lives
And how we deal with our own destinies
But something happens
When you reach a certain age
Particularly to those ones that are young at heart
It’s a lonely proposition when you realize
That’s there’s less days in front of the horse
Than riding in the back of this cart
I say

Chorus

Tags: authenticity, freedom, subversive

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