Road Trip: FL and GA.

There are memories here. The candle burns briefly. A Whiter Shade Of Pale turns to grey, motel-room silence. We flicker and flow and flicker again. It’s what we do.

There are places here - beyond memory - where you can see baby gators. There are ‘adult supermarkets’, where, you imagine, you can browse aisles of men and women to put in your trolley and then queue with at the eight items or less/fewer till. Unless you’re particularly greedy.

There are churches here which look like 1937’s prediction of a 1977 building.

I don’t want to feel what I feel. I want - more here than anywhere - to overcome me.

Across the state line into Georgia. We listen to the GodisGodisn’t passions of Nick Cave. In the past, people stir. Our sons and daughters love the we’s we were but we still feel like imposters.

It’s cooler and rainier here than in London. Our air conditioned hearts begin to icen. I’m told I’m too negative and it’s true. When you realise you’ve always been like this but learned to hide it, you want to run. Of course.

Watch the dismissal of the waitress by the assistant manager. He has dreads and the arrogance of the comfortably dim. You decide not to tip and feel Chinese-burned with guilt.

Did you know? I went to two of Wilko’s absolutely final gigs and one of Mott’s. There’s a sadness to the prolonging of death, to adding too many verses. No-one can sing Hallelujah all the way through because no-one can remember that many words.

The chorus is what really counts.