Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

my music

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“Punk” happened one day, and i can’t really say it any way other than that. One day i was sitting in this very chair at this very computer having a conversation about not having very much of a voice back in highschool, and the next think i knew i was writing this song. I really didn’t have much of a voice in highschool… i was the loud and obnoxious one, and i had opinions, but i don’t know if i ever said what i felt and i know even less whether or not anyone was even listening. “Punk” is deceptively punk-rock and upbeat… maybe in highschool we all wanted to be a punk band, but it’s just the spirit of it that stuck around.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4793859/

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So, wow, doing requests by the light of dawn is pretty fun, but you can hear the weariness creeping into my voice. None of the requests are going to debut until we’re back into the PM hours, so don’t get too excited.

I’ve let quite a few songs drift by without much commentary. “Goodbye” is not just some random blues lament; it’s really about losing one of my friends to their enamourment with drugs. College cut me off from them before i could hear how it turned out and they’re still alive now so i hope all is well, but when i left them they were doing things a bit more than was healthy. I am honestly okay with all sorts of recreational drug use, but (for example) using cocaine is over the line of what i consider “recreation” and i basically made that clear not as an ultimatum but as a concern. And i was ignored. So, eventually, “Goodbye” was the result. Somewhere along the way it absorbed its siamese twin of a song “Fearless,” which was the same emotion attached to someone wholly different … basically, i was watching the movie Fearless and it has a very graphic plain-crash scene in it twice, and i had just lost someone in a crash two summers before, and it just brought all of the emotions crashing down on my head and then i was in my hallway crying for a while, and then “Fearless” happened. Both are the same thing… saying goodbye without ever wanting to.

“Never Say Goodbye” is the polar opposite in too many ways other than its name to count. First of all, it involves the conscious decision to never let go of a friend despite of something separating us because that something wasn’t final like addiction or death; it was just space. I don’t write songs consciously very often – that is, i don’t usually pick an emotion and then run with it – but in this case i had the intent and i had the opening line and the song happened. “NSG” is probably the most-editted of all of my songs, and i have three drafts worth of RealAudio to prove it. But, anyhow, it was a great success on my demo so i’ve been leaving it alone lately to give it a bit of a break.

eek, time for another shower or some caffeine pills…

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4793481/

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so close to the picture, to the ideal, that i can feel what it pictures, what it feels like. did you think i would melt down like the ice on the back roof? cause i’m still standing hear, and i’m thinking of spring. i’m alone; high time for a change in the weather. out in the snow there’s no one, no one to talk to. and i see out my back window the roofs with their ice, and i’m wondering: does it mean we have to freeze over. (so we’re close, closer to something than we were yesterday, but i’m feeling the space between us grow deeper. just like the snow it turns up the contrast on our world. and, i’m thinking we need less between us.)

When i’m supposed to be melting down, thinking of spring is me trying to prove that i’m not going to dissolve in her warmth. That was the rationale, at least.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4791207/

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“Nothing To Say” is what almost every one of my songs starts out as in that somewhere near the beginning i’m lamenting my lack of words or feelings or actions or love or something else like that. My songwriting has never really been about having something so much as it’s been about having a lack of something, and “Nothing to Say” is the pinnacle of that … throwing up angry red flares at a nonexistant relationship just because i have nothing to say to it except for that i want to lash out but don’t have the right words.

I’ve got nothing to say – did you think it’d go any other way? I’ve been holding it all in – asphyxiate and now i’ve gone astray. Somewhere in my mind i knew all the words i had meant for you; I was trying to be kind, but now i just want to hurt you. I’ve got nowhere to run and it’s no fun – and you know i am hiding something where it won’t be found, deep under ground – under these sounds. Hiding under these sounds surround me all around my body i can’t see past your light, your skin, this day, this dimness – i am surrounded. I am out of my age: staring into the sun – i remember being young. It’s so far in my mind – it’s not the same after you’ve spent some time out in the life; it won’t apologize for the scars it leaves on you and me on me, but yours are more obscure. And looks decieve. sounds surround me all around my body i can’t see past your light, your skin, this day, this dimness – i am surrounded. I am bitter. Just ask me how i taste: like the salt over your shoulder. This is no kindof way for me to be, don’t you see? You and me… i’ve got things to lay out on the table. This is no kinda way to be, and i can’t say how i’d see things eye to eye. Maybe i can escape some kind of way, but i haven’t found a thing to say. I’ve got nothing to say.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4789536/

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Rabi and Martha both seem to like “colorblind” quite a bit, which is funny, because i think i never intended on playing it more than once. Or, maybe i had forgotten about it. Except, one day i found myself and my guitar in the middle of a field at Swarthmore and i asked Rabi what she might like to hear and she asked for “Colorblind,” and i halfway rewrote it while i was playing it, and after that i considered it a real part of my collection of songs the same way Rabi suddenly became not just a figment of the internet but a real friend. So, anyway, “Colorblind” was incredibly easy to record because it’s still exactly that malleable, and i wish everything in life would keep on being that easy.

My emotions flow out like sand in an hourglass filling up the past. They’re from a beach full of grains, like a pallet of colors, but this is what i’m left to paint with. I used all of my red to make a beautiful heart – that’s where it all started. And i lost the black and blue painting it to match you, and wiping out all the working parts. I had a rainbow of colors to paint our love, but now it’s just sand through my fingers. I’ll be lucky if i’m left with the grey sky that it was cast against to paint what lingers. I gave you my first times and I gave you my trust, and you just smoldered like a furnace. We were hot enough that all we did was combust, and ashes are all we’re left with. I had a rainbow of colors to paint our love, but now it’s just sand through my fingers. I’ll be lucky if i’m left with the grey sky that it was cast against to paint what lingers. The enormity of you and me made me colorblind. And now that that we’re through I’m scraping together all that’s left over of the colors i can find. I found a discarded green: the color of your envy. I’ve got white for my spotlight. ‘Cause you were center stage; you stole the applause from my life. And i’ve got just enough left over to paint a four leaf clover. Yeah, I’ll need all the luck in the world. ‘Cuz with all this black and white how will i ever find another beautiful girl?

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4787400/