Fragile

(album: Jesu / Sun Kil Moon - 2016)

We made love this morning and she went off to Best Buy and Bed, Bath & Beyond
But I stayed in bed cause in my mind there was so much going on
Chris Squire died the other night and it brought tears to my eyes
Cause I'd just saw the Italian film Youth where his song played five or six times
The love song "Onward" Chris Squire was the Starship Trooper
The angelic songbird brought down by Leukemia I heard
I remember spinning The Yes Album with my childhood friend Christopher
Who was battling Leukemia too and losing his hair
We were in his brother's bedroom hanging out with his older brother
Spinning "I've Seen All Good People" and "Your Move" over and over
That green album and learning to play guitar became my obsession
While everyone else was trapping muskrats and shooting Winchesters and Remingtons

Christopher died a year later
Last time I saw him we were smoking laced reefer
Some crazy guy was chasing us with a baseball bat and Christopher and I just laughed
A warm sunny memory a stringer full of fish
It wasn't long after he was killed by a bus
A divine intervention cause he was losing the bout and losing his voice
He refused to suffer in a hospital cause he just wanted to live like everyone else and have fun and hang out

We went to his memorial and his brother was a drunk, angry mess
He was crying and kicking and out of his mind and threatening to kill us
So the next morning we returned to Christopher's grave
The same graveyard where he and I used to drink Bud Light all day
But on went my life and I bought all the Yes albums
Yeah, even the ninety-nine cent cut-out bin Tormato
And I saw Yes back in Ohio, then at The Warfield in San Francisco
And Jon Anderson had so much energy he was jumping around and hitting every note
But when we came home my girlfriend learned it was some other guy they found on YouTube from Ontario
We were pretty far back that shows you what I know

Years later I got a call from director Paolo Sorrentino
He loved the song "Onward", he said it was a great American ballad and I said
"No, It's by Chris Squire" and shrugged like whatever and puffed his cigar
And he flew me out to Switzerland and he filmed me playing the song all day long
Me singing "Onward" to some extras and Michael Caine out on a lawn
And for everyone out there who hasn't heard it, trust me "Onward" is a great love song

I finally got to see Paolo's film on a day off in Milan
The main theme of the soundtrack was that dreamy, old love song
The movie was dubbed in Italian and Steve Shelley fell asleep
But thank god for "Onward" because they cut all my other scenes
I think of John Paul Jones and John Entwistle and the great bass players of that time
But the guy who cut through like no other guy was the guy who played his Rick with a pick, Chris Squire
And I laid in bed and I thought of those old albums
Close to the Edge and Relayer and Going for the One and Fragile
The last one Yes ever made was Heaven and Earth
If heaven is real then none belong there more than Chris Squire and my long lost friend, Christopher