Lyric of the Week: GOOD TIMES BOOGIE

Well I’m sitting in the tower

With a gun on my knee

Trying hard to stay awake tonight

Well it’s lonely up here

It’s cold and boring too

But I know in the end I’ll make it out all right

Well I got my eyes on the road

Down in the valley below

Watching all those suspicious cars zoom by

How long will it take

Till I’ll be living it up

Instead of watching precious time go by

chorus

But there’s a bright side out there somewhere

Where the everyday ain’t so mean

There’s a real world out there somewhere

Where not everything is green

There’s a night life out there somewhere

Where there’ll be plenty of time to dream

Get on your feet and do the good times boogie

I’m on my elbows and knees

Crawling through thorns

Till my whole body is slashed and covered with blood

I try to close my eyes

But I can’t go to sleep

When my sleeping bag is sinking into the mud

repeat chorus

Big red and white bus take me home

Back to the city tonight

Back to the real world where my heart is

Where the ship isn’t run so tight

The going’s too tough to throw a wrench in the works

With all the time I serve

I work very hard all of a twelve-day week

But I’ll get what I deserve

repeat chorus

For all you dudes that live this kind of life

Don’t give up your hope

Someone sweet will be waiting for you

When you reach the end of your rope

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel

And when you get there you’ll see the darkness wasn’t all that bad

Just get on your feet and do the good times boogie

Get on your feet and do the good times boogie

Get on your feet and do the good times

Get on your feet and do the good times boogie

©2016 The Hesh Inc.

Basic training, Machaneh Shomron, May 1985. L-R: The three English speakers of the class—myself, Moshe (Maurice) Field, and Eli Allon.

This is one of a crop of songs I wrote during my basic training with the Israel Defense Forces in May, 1985. I can tell you exactly where I wrote it: in the "bunker yishuv"—a tower placed inside the civilian community that abutted the military base where I was stationed. Basic was a very difficult period for me—it was not just physically taxing, as expected, but emotionally draining and laced with the disappointment I felt at being assigned to a combat unit (as opposed to the orchestra that I had passed the audition for about a month earlier) at the behest of the IDF's manpower needs. It was music—both the music that was popular at the time and the music that I wrote—that helped keep me sane throughout that time in my life.