Patrick Hernandez - Born To Be Alive

boomp3.com
Born To Be Alive.mp3

This song is a fucking legendary mythical beast. I first heard this a few weeks ago (which is shocking) on the radio, and it instantly blew my mind. And let's just think about this song. What do you think of the title? It's fucking profound, is what it is. Born to be alive. It is profoundly simple, profoundly true and its message is positively amazing. Throw all that together when you look at it linguistically and the simplicity of its literal meaning, combined with the added significance of saying "alive" (as in living life to the fullest), and you've got gold on your hands. Plus some diamonds. This song is so fucking good. And damn, is it a weird track.

Musically, this thing is just wild. Immediately, it throws you for a loop and keeps you off-balance. And those horns are crazy!!! They shoot and zip all over the place and you never feel like you get a hold on the song; it's always surprising and delighting you (like life!). The instant you hear, "We were born to be! Ali-ive!", you know you've got a strict beast on your hands. How profound is this phrase?!?!??!!?!?! It's unbelievable!!!!!! Think about it! As my friend Akiva pointed out, it is quite possibly the only absolutely true statement that anyone could ever make (reminds me of Paul Haig's "The only truth anymore are the words that I sing in this song..."). Think about that one for a minute. This phrase is on the level of even the legendary "It is what it is" (which could be the only other statement that is absolutely true). We were born to be alive. But this phrase isn't even one with the same linguistic simplicity, in which a pronoun is simply stated to be itself. This is just a phrase that is clever and completely and utterly true. And literally, you are born to be alive. If you are not alive when you are born, you are not born. And what is the purpose of being born? To be alive.

But here, Hernandez states this truth but also uses it to exclaim to the world that we are meant to be ALIVE! To LIVE! To go wild and enjoy ourselves, to live life to the fullest and regret nothing! This is gorgeous. When he begins saying "It's good to be alive! It's good to be alive!", I get goosebumps. This song is just phenomenal. These are words to live by, aren't they? This song is flat-out profound, and it's one of the silliest songs in the world that I could ever say that about. I mean, listen to how weird this thing is. This guy is NUTS, but in all the right ways (watch the video clips above).

This song is literally changing my life. I have not been the same person since I first heard it, and I'm totally not even kidding. This song has ignited a fire within me, simply through my marveling at the beauty and profundity of its refrain - not to mention the message itself. But this thing is a work of genius. Seriously - "We were born to be alive" is one of the most brilliant things ANYONE has EVER said in the history of humanity. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Anyway, I had a dream the other night that was very, very important, but will also make you laugh. I dreamt that I was hiking on a mountainside that contained on its surface an unnaturally wide variety of different elements of landscape. There was a stream, snow, large patches of strange rock, dirt, grass, and so forth. As I was walking along the mountain (often moving sideways as opposed to uphill), a voice told me that every element I saw; everything I touched; everything on this mountain had its own unique voice, and that nature was constantly speaking to me and to all of us. And guess which song was somehow playing aloud as if on a soundtrack? As David Putty would say, "Yeah, that's right." Born To Be Alive.

This song is so zesty and has all of these incredible little musical elements that just come in at the strangest times. As I mentioned earlier, this is just like life. All these unexpected things happen to you, and you just have to make the most of them. That's part of being truly Alive, isn't it? Taking things as they come and not shying away from what is presented to you? It's like in Paul Haig's Something Good; all you can do is take everything - even if it seems bad - and make it into something good. Life is not about control; and that is something this song understands perfectly. It is decidedly out of control, isn't it? It's one of the most insane songs I've ever heard, musically. It just runs wild, unabashedly. And this is how life flows; it comes at you so quickly sometimes, and you have control over almost none of it, although you must take responsibility for all of it that becomes Your Life and part of Yourself. Do the work and let it go, for you will never stop Life and Time.

We were born to be alive.