lyrics

July 29, 2001 by admin

On the flipside, “Unstrung” is obliquely about my first exgirlfriend … inversing my feelings so that i’m bitter about her breaking up with me rather than me breaking up with her. I wrote it after having seen Peter Mulvey and Erin McKeown play at a local acoustic club. Peter and Erin are two of my favourite songwriters, and really two of my idols because neither of them are even 30 yet they know how to write amazing moving songs and they have thousands of people who gladly listen to them. I had never seen Erin play before and that night i saw her from barely five feet away and she’s very tiny but her songs were huge and towering and larger than life. So, i came home and tried to be her for a few minutes, with her jazz chords and fancy metaphor. I still prefer listening to her albums over mine, but a boy can try, can’t he?

You broke one of my heart-strings from playing around too hard; did you think it was just like me banging away on my guitar? I forget all the little things – i just know how things are, and i i’m gonna lead by your example and get far away. ’cause you poor little caged bird you never sang for me, but oh how your voice rang out after you got free. i had never before in my life heard such a beautiful noise: it sang the way you’d think my heart would sing if i had a choice, but… i’ve got a fantasy: it’s just you and me. we’re inside your room, in your bed, cause instead of leaving too soon you never left instead. Cause you left me here standing alone in the low tide, and you set out to sea like a ship rolling out with my pride. now i’m standing here all alone on the beach; just sitting here with sand on my feet but – i’ve got a fantasy. in it’s just you and me. we’re holding hands, ’cause you know in this one we never learned how to make demands. You broke one of my heart strings from playing around to hard, did you think it this was as easy as me restringing my guitar?

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4783470/

July 29, 2001 by admin

where is the pretty face you put on for show? i think you’re hiding that saving grace for no good reason, for later – and i’d hate you more if i didn’t watch your every move. and i will watch you put on anything you do. where is that whimsied smile that you’ve had for years? i’ve heard all about it keeping away your fears. i’d like a chance to see what those lips have wrought: i think you’d owe me that, if you just thought about it. and i will watch you do anything you choose. and i will wait for you to make your move. will it ever come?

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4783363/

July 29, 2001 by admin

“Burn” is something of a song of legend around these parts because it was the first thing i ever lost to Blogger’s edit window. I had been fixated on the word “burn” for the entire week and one night at about 3am i started writing and didn’t stop for a half hour and immediately pressed post to immortalize the words i had just wrung out of my subconsious. And, Blogger famously burped and ate my post which i didn’t think to back up. So, “Burn” as it exists right now is an amalgam of the thoughts i had been having at the time, but not the song it’s meant to be … that song is lost to the ether of the internet.

i can feel the heat on the back of my neck like the fires you lit you little arsonist you can’t help it and i know you burn just for show but i’m held back by your heat you know i won’t come any closer// i watched you kindle i’ll watch you burn i watched you kindle now i’ll watch you burn down// i see you light it up again and i smile as you keep burning within i know that you’ll torch every bridge i’ve seen the smoke rise up over the ridge and i can tell your hot for me i see see the pyres in your eyes wouldn’t you love to turn my tempature up to the boiling point of desire// i watched you kindle i’ll watch you burn i watched you kindle now i’ll watch you burn down// i’ll watch you wade out through the ash your hands dirty from what you brought crashing down up to your neck in the soot of the past it isn’t such a blast once you put it out// i watched you kindle i’ll watch you burn i watched you kindle now i’ll watch you burn down/

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4782380/

July 29, 2001 by admin

“All That’s True” was a passive act of collaboration.

I have this friend Gina who i’ve been friends with ever since i finally escaped my Born Again grade school in 1994. She was the reason i started to do theatre, and the reason i started to play guitar – because she’s always made both things look so incredibly effortless. One thing i started on my own was songwriting, because Gina was never one with much of a bent towards lyrical writing. When i wrote my first song i was too awful at guitar playing to write the music so she wrote it for me and then taught it to me. The next year she wrote one of her first sets of lyrics, and they were amazing, but she never really did anything with them. So, in the summer of 1999 i was up late one night doing nothing and i had just gotten into the tuning FADGCF, which is now one of my favourites. I was playing around with the tuning, which lets you play lots of nice open C and F chords, and i happened to be trolling through my Netscape email for snippets of lyrics that had been left by the wayside, and one thing lead to another and “All That’s True” got written. Gina still doesn’t know how to play it, but if she comes over later i’ll teach her. Here are the lyrics:

If a rose bloomed in winter would it be a strange sight/ what if it had blue petals/ and only bloomed at night/ do you think it still would be called a rose/ if it didn’t smell as sweet/ I think instead, they’d just rename it/ and sell it on the street, because//

I wonder what would happen if I went back/ to when all the cave men were here/ I wonder what would happen if I took two rocks/ and discovered fire and decided to call it air/ do you think that I’d be famous/ would they draw me on a cave wall/ do you think they’d give me their barter/ so I could profit from it all//

If a rose bloomed in winter/ would they sell it on TV/ and for 49.95/ could i get a second one for free/ do you think by any other name/ it would smell as sweet/ or would it just be another flower/ sold off the corner of the street//

Everything’s for sale today, just like it was before/ and tomorrow there’ll be something new that’ll make it all worth more/ in the end, it’s all worth nothing/ if it means nothing to you/ but that’s okay if the money’s made/ ’cause that is all that’s true/ // / Everything’s for sale today, just like it was before/ and tomorrow there’ll be something better that will cost you so much more/ it’s all worth nothing in the end/ worth nothing to you/ but they can make their money/ if we can keep our right to choose

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4782261/

July 29, 2001 by admin

This tiny trouble finally got the best of you and made a nest in your heart and a lump in your throat, and all that you possess will never mean as much to you as that one small chance you missed. And it’s nagging at your heels just like a dog trying to chew up the cover over what went wrong, because your excuses will expire eventually. Tiny creeping wrinkles tucked into the corners of your eyes – a simple smile does not constitute a suitable disguise. A flick of the wrist, a wrinkle of your nose won’t fix this – although we all watch Bewitched sometimes. But no magic act can change the fact that you got hung up on so fast phone’s in the cradle as fast as your able to get it down on the table.

You set the alarm for 5am just so you can get up with the sun as if the brightness it brings can drown out the din of all the worries your done in for. You take the keys so so careful there’s no sound and drive around until you pass the playground, but it’s too early for children to appreciated it so you sit on a swing and you contemplate the situation. Cause mourning doesn’t hold all the answers and it keeps picking at you a little faster and you use your feet to drag to a stop. But what will you tell them? What will they say? You put your hands into your pockets and you’re so afraid. Days will go by and you’re still be waiting just inhaling and exhaling that air that contains you because you’re so afraid to dilate to open up to anyone.

So, back in your room at 6am, not a moment too soon for you. You close the door, turn the key so nobody can and pull that letter out of the drawer. To you it reads “don’t bother trying anymore,” but you rip it to shreds. And go back to bed

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4781973/