“She don’t remember my name.” Het is de belangrijkste en meest hartverscheurende zin, uit het allertrieste lied dat ik ken. Een lied over een bezoek aan het ouderlijke huis met alle herinneringen van dien, en aan een oude moeder die er nog steeds woont. Hemeltergend pijnlijk en aangrijpend, en de lange stiltes maken het nog extra schrijnend.

Het lied is terug te vinden op het album Black Music (1998) van de groep Chocolate Genius, die een eclectische combinatie speelt van R&B, jazz en Indie. De centrale figuur in dit los collectief aan muzikanten, is de in Jamaica geboren New Yorker Marc Anthony Thompson, met daarnaast instrumentalisten als John Medeski (toetsen), Vernon Reid (gitaar), Marc Ribot (gitaar), Jane Scarpantoni (cello), Chris Whitley (gitaar) en Chris Wood (bas).

My Mom
They got five televisions,
in a house built for three.
Look up on that fake fireplace,
you know, the bucktoothed boy’s me.
See that wood panelled room,
that’s where I learned to drink.
You see that hole in the wall,
that was Seagrams, I think.

And that tree was a goal post,
that bathroom it was a shroud.
That closet it was a phone booth,
and that mirror it was a crowd.
See that guy with the bad knees,
and his heart on his sleeve.
Watch him slip me ten dollars,
when it comes time to leave.

It’s been five years and some change.
And this world is getting so strange.
But this old house smells just the same.
And my mom,
she don’t remember my name.
She’s my mom.

I sit on her bed
and I kissed her right behind the ear.
She calls out for a dog
that’s been dead for a year.
I say how is it going,
just like I didn’t know.
Hold on to both of her hands,
too afraid to let go.

And five times exactly,
no more or no less.
She says “how you been eating boy”.
I say, I’m okay I guess.
In this room where she made me,
each day she grows weak.
She flips on the Golden Girls,
and the first tear hits my cheek.

It’s been five years and change.
And this world is getting strange.
But this old house smells just the same.
Cause my mom,
she don’t remember my name.
That’s my mom.