Everyone is probably familiar with Steve Winwood's 1980s hit, "Back in the High Life Again". You may have also heard Warren Zevon's cover, which apparently is the preferred version according to the results of Cover-vs-Original . And if you've not heard Zevon's cover, try to because it is dry, eerie and poetic, nothing like the pop hit put out by Winwood.

While the melody for the filk comes from Winwood and the mood comes from Zevon, the story for the song comes from Dr. Justin Frank's, M.D. book entitled Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (2004).

It is an excellent book, well written and well argued. Frankin adopts the family psychology theories of Melanie Klein to explore George's current psychological condition. The most amazing fact I learned was that the Bush family lost a child. George's younger sister Robin was diagnosed with leukemia in the spring of 1953 when he was six and when she was just three years old. The diagnosis

"...set into motion a series of extended East Coast trips by parents and child in the ultimately fruitless pursuit of treatment. Critically, however, young George was never informed of the reason for the sudden absences; unaware that his sister was ill, he was simply told not to play with the girl, to whom he and grown quite close, on her occasional visits home. Robin died in New York in October 1953; her parents spent the next day golfing in Rye, attending a small memorial service the following day before flying back to Texas. George learned of his sister's illness only after her death, when his parents returned to Texas, where the family remained while the child's body was buried in a Connecticut family plot. There was no funeral." (p.3)

Whoa…that’s rough, not easily dry walled over, even with George’s nearly twenty year’s of sobreity.

So it is with some tactlessness and anger that I indulged myself with this little filk.

Back to the bottle again

It used to seem to George
He could never drive too fast
Coke and booze and mary jane
It must have been a gas
But you’re your daddy’s son
And there’s a battle to be won
Goin’ mano-a-mano in the driveway
Who’s gonna be the one?

He’ll go back to the bottle again
All the prayers he has said will
go up in smoke again

He’ll go back to the bottle again
All the anger and hatred is too
much to hold in

And now you’ve shown your hand
Made war across the land
You beat Sadam and the Taliban
Who could doubt your plan?

But fate is a measured rope
That can wrap around your neck
Pulling tight in a choke-hold
Man, it’s gotta hurt like heck

So he’ll go back to the bottle again
All the prayers he has said will
go up in smoke again

He’ll go back to the bottle again
All the anger and hatred is too
much to hold in

And he’ll drink and smoke with both hands free
Ignore the wife and loose his keys
Oh he’ll be a sight to see
Back in the bottle again