Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
by krisis
It’s funny… i started writing something entirely different… i was convinced that “There is no sense of logic in the pitch leading up to our kiss.” was the line to end all lines. It wasn’t, though, and halfway down the page i ran into the paragraph i posted below, and in reading it back just now it clicked. Now, if only it had another verse, a chorus, or music i’d be set…
by krisis
The room is teeming with other conversations as i zoom in on your smile and the words that you say. Funny how the whole world can reduce down to just one person like the fractions we studied back in third grade. And this is like recess out in the schoolyard; I’m wide eyed and laughing, so out of breath. I’ve got the same butterflies so tightly jarred in my stomach, their wings flutter in my chest
by krisis
Songs have been absolutely blindsiding me lately, and it’s exciting and frustrating all at once. Suddenly i don’t seem to be writing about myself anymore, but those oft-invoked nearly-fictional characters that all songwriters have wandering around in their head. It’s exciting because i seem to have suddenly inherited the mystical powers of an actual writer, but it’s altogether frustrating because i can’t seem to write about what i’m feeling. I wrote “So Hard” based on a single line i had written in a blank IM window, and it seemed as though it would be a throw-away lark until i found myself playing it every time i picked up my guitar. Similarly, last week i began to write “Seams” simply about how the cold makes my walk home seem twice as long, but it transformed into a lament that was entirely indicative of my feelings while being about someone not quite myself.
So, tonight when Andy quipped via IM that he had intentions on writing a song with the line
“You have no proof I said I love you” in it for his non-existent grad-student band i should have known not to joke about writing it. Cause, well, what started out as idly typing a handful of phrases into an empty window wound up writing a whole damn song… all the fault of the following few lines: “Another envelope taped closed. Sharpie marker employed to print out my address. The shredded letter inside leaves your message fairly clear: Return to sender, i guess.”
Actually, Andy had intentions of “You have no proof I said I love you” being the title of his song and, while i’m not sure if it is anymore, we’ve definitely wound up with a song about torn up letters, battered old shoeboxes, accidental hand jobs in the back seats of sedans, and a vitriolic serenade from a suburban front lawn. And, well, since i generally seem to avoid titles longer than four words, let’s just call it “proof” for now, okay? Audio forthcoming, as soon as it stops being 1am :p
Meanwhile, it’s late and i may be a total moron, so here’s a reminder of what i need to read when i wake up tomorrow: CityStories, GlacierGrrl, Andy’s new post.
by krisis
So, if yesterday was a kick in the ass i think today must have been a punch in the gut. The funny thing is, nothing bad happened. Nada. Actually, the day was quite nice.
In other news, i just wrote a song without the word “you” in it. Be very afraid. It’s too late to record it though (roommates are sleeping soundly below), so i’m just here. Here. No homework or anything. Well, actually my homework is mostly just staring anxiously at the silvery reinforced crate that the digital video camera for my class is sitting in. I somehow (am an idiot) managed not to purchase a DV tape before picking up the camera, so i can’t shoot any footage. So, basically, I’m just sitting here staring anxiously at the silver Camera Box. It seems to realize that it makes me uncomfortable, and so it shines unobtrusively in the manner of a much more delightful object, but still inspires terror in the depths of my soul.
Which goes along nicely with the punch in the stomach, actually.
by krisis
Two years.
Seven hundred and thirty one days, exactly.
Nearly right down to the minute.
It’s hard to say something important or unique about a song that comes up in nearly every conversational context possible. I’ve already described writing the lyrics, talked about the recording process, uploaded take after take of developmental recordings… and here i am two years later at a loss for what i’m supposed to be saying.
All i can say is that i’ve spent one tenth of my life living with “Under My Skin” … not only living with it as a song, but living with having written it and with why i wrote it. Living with the song is sometimes the hardest part; “Under My Skin” is easy to like, even for me, and i feel like it eclipses other songs that i’ve worked much harder on. Living with having written it isn’t so bad: at first it felt like a wall i had built to avoid having to express myself in any other way, but now it stands as an emotional landmark rather than a roadblock.
Living with the reason i wrote it is still strange. In the past I would agonize over it, asking myself “how do you kiss someone and then just let it go?” Now i know exactly how, because i’ve done it. It happens. I guess the real question i have is “After life crystallizes for one perfect moment, how do you go on living imperfectly?” I don’t really know the answer to that one, and i don’t expect to find it out any time soon. Sometimes that one moment i lived is almost like a fantasy in my head that never really happened, and sometimes it’s the only thing i can see. It is still both, and all the shades found in-between
“Under My Skin” became more than what i originally intended it to be when Laurel came into the studio to sing it with me last year. Ever since she willingly added her voice to mine i feel as though i don’t wholly own my words… they aren’t only mine anymore. Laurel’s voice singing them on Relief, and any other time i’ve caught her humming along, suddenly transforms “Under My Skin” from a song in the first person to a shared narrative — with its words and all that they are saying awkwardly shared between us both.
It doesn’t bring the moment back. Life doesn’t suddenly make sense the way television does. But, one moment that seemed so selfish and impossible when it first happened is now just a tiny seed that has sprouted into a flourishing garden of songs, friendships, and memories that will last me a lifetime.
And one very good song.