D.O.A.

Edited to Add: I made a link! If you click here and scroll down, you can actually hear a sample of the song: Bloodrock D.O.A.

When I was little, we had to stay with a babysitter while my mom (and "dad") worked. There were different ones, but this one's name was Wanda. For real. She dipped snuff and spit in a Folger's can. A red Folger's can. I don't know how old I was, but it was old enough to remember. I was four-square adamantly against being left at a babysitter's house. I didn't like it. Not at all. And one of the biggest problems was NAP time. The weirded-out idea that you could lay down with a bunch of strangers and go to sleep in the middle of the day. Blech. So anyway, my mom actually told Wanda that I didn't need to take naps, so DON'T MAKE ME. And Wanda didn't. When it was naptime, everyone would lay down on the wood floors while Wanda would rock the babies with a floor fan beside her. The sound of that fan was so calming. And the rhythmic rocking of the chair ...

But there was always a moment when I would turn my head and open my eyes toward the kitchen or the bedroom. That's where Wanda's teenaged kids, Tooter (a boy) and I-Forgot-Her-Name (a girl) would be waiting for me. And they'd give me the motion and I'd head toward them. If they were in the kitchen, we'd be going outside. I'd swing on the aluminum swingset, while Tooter sat at the top of the slide and I-Don't-Remember-Her-Name leaned against the car. And they'd talk and I'd kinda listen.

If they were waiting in the bedroom, it meant we'd be listening to records. And the 45 that they played over and over and over again was a song about a plane crash. The lyrics have been BURNED into my BRAIN, but I've never heard the song since then. I just now googled a few lyrics and FOUND IT!!! It's real. I didn't make it up in my crazy desperate little-kid-lost-in-the-desert "memory."

It's called "D.O.A." and it's by a band called Bloodrock. I wish I could find a .wav file or anything. I want to hear it. It's DAMN dark. And it was very early in the 70's as I recall ...

D.O.A
Bloodrock

Laying here looking at the ceiling
Someone lays a sheet across my chest
Something warm is flowing down my fingers
Pain is flowing all through my back

I try to move my arms and there's no feeling
And when I look I see there's nothing there
The face beside me's stopped it's holy bleeding
The girl I knew has such a distant stare

I remember
We were flying low and hit something in the air
I remember
We were flying low and hit something in the air

Then I looked straight at the attendant
His face is pale as it can be
He bends and whispers something softly
He says there's no chance for me

I remember
We were flying low ( along ) and hit something in the air
I remember
We were flying low and hit something in the air

Life is flowing out my body
Pain is flowing out with my blood
The sheets are red and moist where I'm lying
God in Heaven, teach me how to die

I remember
We were flying low and hit something in the air
I remember
We were flying low and hit something in the air

It ended, I think, with a heartbeat growing ever slower and a breath that finally stops. It had a mighty impact on me at that stage of my development.