Buried Alive By Love
Lisa McFarlane
As a teenager I was an awkward creature. I never quite fitted in with the main crowds of people at school. I also never quite knew what to do with myself other than to hang out with my friends or lock myself in my room and blare heavy metal.
My family is amazing; My mother is the pillar of my very existence and my father is hers. They encourage me to be different, finding the norm in which teenagers my age lived like boring and not at all colourful. My brothers are the most irritating of beasts but I really do love them. Even if Stephen has stolen my Slipknot album for the hundredth time and now officially lost it. And Kevin can not abide heavy metal and tends to make comments about my hair and makeup every time I see him but I have from good authority that he is proud that his sister is not, quote, A dumb blond. I have friends who I could always depend on for anything I needed. Overall, I had a pretty good life.
Yet, I never got by the loneliness that I felt as a teenager. It was not anything that my family, nor my friends, had ever caused. How could they ever cause problems when they where as different in many ways themselves?
My peers had led me to doubt myself.
Goth, Mosher, vampire, freak. These names had been flung around the school at me and my friends for months now. Adam never seemed to show that it bothered him then again his head was full of new drumbeats. Vikki was oblivious it seemed. Too busy day dreaming in her gothic, romantic, fashion of her boyfriend David. But, not me. I let it get to me, deep down into me each time. The day that would lead to a massive change in my life started no differently than the normal Monday to Friday routine.
I left school with Adam shouting behind me that we were going to see a movie that night. Ill text you, I heard before I shoved my headphones in. I walked the short distance home laden with textbooks and folders as always. I think Geek was another favourite at school. Marilyn Manson was blaring in my ears, blocking out the world around me. But the music could never drown out the looks that people gave me as I walked by.
I walked into the house, found myself in my room, flung the books on the floor without a care and fell back onto my bed. Above me, Kurt Cobain looked right back at me, his icy blue eyes seemed to be looking right into me. Kurt Cobain was just another dead rock star though. What was the point in dressing like this and listening to heavy metal if people where just going to hate me all the time? You never seen people who liked Britney Spears or Westlife get picked on. Or people who listened to dance music! They would probably rip me apart if I even tried. I was getting tired of the tragic image because the more and more I wore it, the more I actually felt tragic.
My mum had bought me Kerrang magazine as my usual weekly treat. At one point this magazine and Metal Hammer ran my life and, to a certain extent still does. (I buy Metal Hammer religiously on pay day each month so not much has changed that way). It lay on my desk with a note : Hope its the right one, mum x. She definitely knows me well. I pulled it off the desk and a CD tumbled from it, landing on my head. Another insult for the day. The CD had new bands, old bands and some very awesome bands. So I conformed to being a freak, got up and put it on my CD player.
The first few songs were okay, not my music scene but still good. Then, a song came on, intended just for me, intended to change my life and the world around. If I should die before I wake bring the one my soul to take. Ville Valos amazing voice filled my room. HIM, a Finish metal band, had just released Buried Alive by Love. Ville Valo, a tormented young man himself, had written a masterpiece which made me sit up in bed and look in amazement at my CD player. The beautiful, sorrowful, voice filled my box room. It made me realise something; this guy was considered a Goth, a freak, just like me and look at him, listen to him and his band! They sold millions of albums all over the world, are followed almost religiously by music lovers and celebrities alike. And they were not your average every day kids. In fact, Villes dad owns a porn shop in Helsinki!!
Suddenly, it didnt matter anymore to me what they thought. God, my parents and my friends loved me for who I am. Who cared what people who barely even knew my real name thought of me anymore?!
My advice? Find your song. Im twenty three this year and I still listen to HIM and heavy metal is my main passion in life as well as my writing. Buried Alive by Love is in my most rated list on my iPod and I listen to it most days I think. I still wear Gothic/rock clothing. I have piercings and tattoos. I have done crazy things with my hair and makeup for as long as I can remember. I hold down a rather impressive job in the city centre of Glasgow and have a lovely flat with my partner. Yet, if I had never heard that song, well, who knows how much I would have changed just to conform to some unwritten norm in the high school world.
