Revisiting The Alarm’s “Rescue Me”

The first time I heard "Rescue Me" was, well just over three decades ago. I was in that difficult stage in life that is the transition from childhood to adolescence. 

My mother left the country in search of a re-start for her life, and eventually as she hoped, our lives. My father was, well what were fathers like in those days? They were distant and rarely seen figures who would just grunt, nod or shake their heads.

If you had one that talked to you, then you were golden. Usually those were Dads of the rich kids, the ones who didn’t need to toil too much. 

Lost and unsure, the world was such a hostile and lonely place. In such loneliness, sadness can easily form into anger. A huge ball of anger that does not have direction, and for the one carrying it, has enough juice to burn the world.

Rescue Me was a song from The Alarm’s third studio album, Eye of the Hurricane, released in 1987, In the pre-internet age, the chance that we here in the Philippines could have found that song was minimal. But true to the ironies of life, some such things do happen.

“Rescue Me” did not touch on what I was my problem was. What it did was grab what I was feeling, that which was so big, it felt like it spanned the breadth of the universe and made me (unknowingly) channel it into singing along at the top of my voice, with my fists clenched and tears running down my face. Fast forward to now, remembering it so strongly that I ended up going to iTunes and purchased it from "The Best of The Alarm" album.

It started my love for the British bands of that age, singing about the general inequality of life, and our human condition. It was one of the things that allowed me to step off the ledge, and reach this age, where I now write, and most oftentimes discuss about my passions. Although frankly speaking, I should try and keep a recorder, because what I’m writing about now is just a shell of the discussion I had earlier that brought this up.

Ah, but we can’t all be rockstars or poets. But we can still bask in their glory. If you feel lost right now and wander here, I am an example that there is tomorrow, if you decide not to cut your life short.