''Well, I've been out walking
I don't do that much talking these days
These days
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do for you
And all the times I had the chance to...
These days I'll sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend
Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them"
These days by Jackson Browne
[?]
once again, mess with soulful perfection,
the melancholic mood of music & word
making me aching for the sweet sadness
of loss for when one possessed a curvature of
the smooth straight idyllic perfect love
of friends, family & females,
ascending into crescendo,
then the blood letting of
ego, vanity, incorrect priorities,
the hurrying up to nowhere silly manhood,
and Jackson bemoans
"About the things that I forgot to do for you,"
begging please in a daily prayer,
let me be
confronted with my failures,
my children,
I have not forgotten them,
though, they, I,
nor you,
and you too,
have not forgiven me,
nor I,
myself
and all that is left
is counting time
in quarter tones,
and even smaller, finer
intervals,
to make my punishment for all my
mistakes, go slower, making my time taking
more grievous painful…
In the context of the song "These Days," counting time in quarter tones to ten means using musical notation to mark the passage of time, specifically dividing each "quarter" of an hour into even smaller intervals (quarter tones) up to the tenth quarter hour. This is likely a metaphorical way of saying the speaker is deeply immersed in a melancholic state, counting down the time until a specific moment (perhaps ten o'clock) or simply reflecting on the slow passage of time
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These Days
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