Long Way Home

I decided to make a point of finishing this one, since I had been putting it off for a while (started it on 17 April).  Also, since I had teased it in the last post.

But, yeah.  I know, I know.  Nothing for a nearly a month and a half, and then bam! two in as many days.  Sorry about that.  But there are things, like lyric muses, that you just can't plan.  Also, you never know when procrastination might set in and you want to do something, ANYthing, else but what you actually have to do.

Today was one of those days.

This whole month has been one of those days.

I really wish I had written this song earlier, when I had originally wanted to write it.  So much of the glory in which it was conceived had faded by yesterday evening, when I finished it, and that which is left will eventually be eroded the rest of the way, just by the most unexciting, ordinary interactions of the everyday.  It's a shame, but that's the way it is.

And it's all my own fault, really.

Anyway.  This song is about finally putting things out in the open, about saying things you needed to say and he kept putting off discussing, until the dams broke wide open and there you were, both of you being more honest than you've ever been, in the name of making things right and coming to terms with what on earth has happened between the two of you.  And, at some point during this conversation - which, inexplicably but logically, happens in the front seat of his car, because that's the only place you've ever been alone together - the most amazing thing happens, and it's not what you expected, or even thought you wanted: you realise that somewhere over the past months, in between falling in love with him and killing that love with each time he hurt you unwittingly, the two of you became such damn good friends.  Because you and he are way too similar to be so far apart.

So you make a pact to remain friends.  Because that's what he liked best.

And, at the same time, you silently promise yourself to run, far away and as fast as you possibly can, from anyone you meet in the future whose name is David.

Long Way Home

he could drive anything in the world with four wheels
and the only place I'd want to be
is right there next to him in that front seat
looking through the windshield at the small-town streets

'cause sometimes the only way to tell the truth
is to not look each other in the eye
and you just might find yourself when you try
to destroy some broken bridges and start anew

he said, "I know I just drove past a shortcut,
but I want to take you back the long way home"
so, without constraints, we just let it go
and two hours passed before I even knew what

CHORUS:
by the end, I was cross-legged, barefoot in the front seat
he said something funny about the colour on my toes
I'd been angry for so long I had forgotten how friendship feels
so I let myself fall back into it, head over heels
and every mile he drove was one more step on the long road back to me
I was relearning who I am as he was driving us the long way home

he drove along without anywhere specific in mind
and the music went in circles, too
he closed the window when I got the shivers halfway through
and we both agreed to a pact not to apologise

'cause sometimes the only way to tell the truth
is to promise not to take it personally
when you're both afraid of your words being mean
but things have to break completely in order to begin anew

CHORUS:
by the end, I was cross-legged, barefoot in the front seat
he said something funny about the colour on my toes
I'd been angry for so long I had forgotten how friendship feels
so I let myself fall back into it, head over heels
and every mile he drove was one more step on the long road back to me
I was relearning who I am as he was driving us the long way home

BRIDGE:
but when he opened the car door, I still left him with a lie
'cause I wouldn't be me without a little something to hide

but sometimes the only way to tell the truth
is to not give it all away at once
and to stand on your own and not be anyone's
you first have to know what it's like to lose you

CHORUS:
by the end, I was cross-legged, barefoot in the front seat
he said something funny about the colour on my toes
I'd been angry for so long I had forgotten how friendship feels
so I let myself fall back into it, head over heels
and every mile he drove was one more step on the long road back to me
I was relearning who I am as he was driving us the long way home

he said, "I know I just drove past a shortcut,
but I want to take you back, the long way home..."

The lie I left him with was a vital one (necessary for self-preservation), but still one I regret somehow.  I told him I no longer like him.  But that was the price to pay, I guess, to remain friends, so it's one I have to live with.

And I also wanted to say this: I hereby resign from writing love songs.  The sad ones, the painful ones, the broken ones were always my best, anyway.  And I've resigned myself to the fact that those latter experiences are the only ones I'll ever know, so that makes my walking away from love songs ever so much easier.  Seriously, did I ever write one that was even somewhat decent?  I don't think so; pain is my strong suit.

The next song, "Closed Doors," will deal with this.  I may post it later today.

Much love, and thank you for the musik.

But secretly they're saviours.

All a Lie

I have a strange relationship with this song.

The reason I haven't posted in ages - though I've written two full and many, many partial songs - is because I was waiting for myself to finish a specific one ("Long Way Home"), as though that would be the ONE song worth waiting for.

It's not.

It might be, when I finish it.  But right now, it's not.  I have three verses and a chorus, but it's not enough.  And the mind-space in which I was when I started writing it (nearly two months ago!) is one with which I am no longer familiar, which is the primary problem.  But I will try to bring it all back, because I have to.  I owe it to the girl I was then to finish it.

None of which, of course, has anything to do with this song.  So I'll start again.

I have a strange relationship with this song.

It's a relationship based on the fact that I love the moment it's about.  Love it completely - and relive it often, still getting goosebumps after all this time.

But I wrote the song out of some masochistic motivation to force myself to hate the moment instead.  Because it's safer.  It's easier.

(It also didn't work - mostly because it's hard for even me to convince myself of something that's not true.)

So I wrote this because I got scared, and thought that hurting myself (by disfiguring a sweet memory) would be the best way to deal with that - which, obviously, it wasn't.  It never is, no matter how often I try it.

Because here we are.

I don't know how much background you may need for this, but it's about a friend of mine.  A friendship I lucked into, and I think both of us got there by accident.  He's someone I didn't know I needed, didn't know I wanted to have at this point in my life - but when he's not around, or we are of necessity aloof to each other, I miss him.  We don't even have that much in common, aside from our interests in hockey (thank goodness he's also a Devils fan) and other sports.  But we are both, in one way or another, broken, even if in this we also differ: he stubbornly (but perhaps wisely, given what he's told me) wishes to remain permanently so, whereas I am afraid of never getting all of my pieces back together.

And I think I would, or could, fall for him, if I weren't so hell-bent on breaking my own heart.  (Well, also, if he who has my heart weren't so hell-bent on breaking it, over and over, for me.)

This song is about the first time he hugged me.

I was hurting, one Friday night the first week of March.  I had come so close to spending the evening with the aforementioned "he who has my heart," but things broke between us and, even though I didn't know at the time how much more would break before things got "better," I must have sensed something, because I was, as I said, hurting.  Badly.  Nearly as badly as possible.

And he could tell.

Later, I got so afraid of just being another conquest* he'll discard just as soon as possible that I wrote this song.

*But it was just a freaking hug.  I'm seriously insane.

All a Lie

you know, you really had me going for a pretty little while
things I'd never said before, I was saying to you
never thought I'd be taken in by a single pretty little line
but after four or five times it started to sound like the truth

CHORUS:
the feel of your shirt under the palm of my hand
you were holding me in an empty room
look at us, neither one was giving a damn
and I was leaning closer into you
I said, "damn, you smell good,"
and you said, "you feel good,"
and it felt like a perfect night
but wasn't it all, wasn't it all a lie?

you know, I'm starting to think you got what you wanted from me
it felt like a good idea then, but now I'm feeling sick
never thought I'd want you to be a discarded memory
and I can still smell you on me so I need to shower real quick

CHORUS:
the feel of your shirt under the palm of my hand
you were holding me in an empty room
look at us, neither one was giving a damn
and I was leaning closer into you
I said, "damn, you smell good,"
and you said, "you feel good,"
and it felt like a perfect night
but wasn't it all, wasn't it all a lie?

BRIDGE:
I lived every day for someone else, and you fell for it
this has twisted up in my mind and now I'm over it
but still I said we should make a habit of it

CHORUS:
the feel of your shirt under the palm of my hand
you were holding me in an empty room
look at us, neither one was giving a damn
and I was leaning closer into you
I said, "damn, you smell good,"
and you said, "you feel good,"
and it felt like a perfect night
but wasn't it all, wasn't it all a lie?
oh-whoa, wasn't it all a lie?

In the weeks since, he became my first kiss on the cheek.  It sounds so silly, I know, but it means more to me - especially the way he said "thank you" - than my first (and last) kiss.

Four years ago, already?

Much love, and thank you for the musik.

Every day, to make myself feel bad, I'll start to wonder if this was the thing to do.