The Process #3 — 5-1

Posted on Wednesday, December 28th, 2011 // 0 Responses.

Name: 5-1
Date Written: 5/1/09
Date Recorded: 5/8/09
Written for: Carbon Footprint

I keep an Excel spreadsheet which I use to track how many songs I write a month, which I then use to compare how many songs I had written at this time last year. I then use that data to tell myself that I’ve fallen off completely. The greatest stand-up comic alive, Louis C.K., said in an interview that he’s terrified that every joke he writes is the last one he’ll ever be able to write. I too find myself very anxious if a few days go by without making any progress on something new. I assume it’s the end. (My other great fear is that I’ll keep writing songs but won’t realize when I cross the threshold into only writing terrible songs like that Jackson Browne song about Cuba).

That was a very neurotic way to try to say that sometimes I write a lot of songs at a time and sometimes I don’t write songs for a long time. This song came out of a span of two weeks in late April/early May 2009 that produced “Cartoon Movies,” “Some Prefer Nettles,” “20,” “Hit Too Hard,” and a few minor leaguers. It’s been two and a half years and it still doesn’t have a title, so “5-1” it is.

Here we see a 20-year old Adam reconciling swine flu and alliteration, or something. Actually, let’s talk about alliteration. As Kanye West said, defending his usage of Auto-Tune on 808s, it’s “the funnest thing to use.” I am addicted to alliteration. (Okay, stop. I realize that’s alliteration. I didn’t do it to be cutesy. Addiction is just the best word I could think of). If you can say all the words in a line with the same letter without compromising the meaning, go for it! The whole world will think you’re an amazing songwriter. It’s totally true. Carbon Footprint was downloaded TWO times last week. Passive voice up in this.

Nah, but this song is pretty good, I think.

Lyrics:

Every time I go back to where I am from
I feel the pit inside my stomach get a little deeper
I hate to see what everybody has become
Troubled townies walking backwards tying tired, tepid tongues
Oh to be young

There’s something to be said for never growing up
But I think nostalgia’s just a wall that people hide behind
I understand the impulse, choose to cut and run
Rather than read, react, remember how you wrote that song
Oh run along

Of course there’s no such thing to be the perfect age
You can’t be seventeen forever nor should you want to be
Simplicity’s a cheap and common luxury
But you won’t be free to fly or find the face you want everyone to see
You won’t be free

When the next great epidemic fills our lungs
And kills our cells one by one
We will go marching to our graves
And when our hearts are swelled and stung
They will inflate with hate and love
And we will prove to one and all

That we have always known what we were doing
Plotted out, future ensuing
Right up till the end

Summertime is here and all I can think about
Are the next few years and how’ll they’ll be different than the last few years
I’ve never been alone, I’m not the only one
Who notices the nuanced nausea nestled in the heat
And I am certain of the the sound of silence carried by the breeze
And see eternity as everlasting, crippling disease
And take a grain of salt with every breath I force my lungs to breathe

And we have never known what we were doing
Played by ear and trust assuming
Right up till the end