Another 10 weeks of The Process, another “man, it’s not the same anymore. Now he’s posting rap covers from 2005. I like everything but rap and country, so this is really upsetting.” Okay, first of all, hold your horses. The Process #25 is going to be a landmark episode. Hold out until then. Second of all, in order to get to the past, we’ve got to confront the distant past. It’s history lesson time.

Daniel and I were in a band in middle school; we broke up freshman year of high school. The songs in that band were about, oh, being molested by Michael Jackson at Neverland Ranch, or a girl not going to the dance with me. Sadly, the band split as a result of a bitterly contentious debate: should we sound more like Rancid or NOFX? I’m not going to say which side of the argument I was on. Sometime in the next two years—in between playing along on bass with …And Out Come The Wolves—I got an acoustic guitar.

In my travels around the internet, I stumbled on a guy doing a medley of rap songs, emo style. I thought to myself, “Hey, I like everything including rap but except country. I should do this with full songs.” My friend and co-conspirator Scott and I figured out some songs, and I did some more on my own. Before long, I had my first EP, Missed Deadlines: six covers of songs by Usher, R. Kelly, Dr. Dre, and more. I played my first solo shows ever before I had any originals to my name. I became known around the ample suburban Montgomery County, MD scene as the emo kid who covered “Gold Digger.” Eventually I got my first “real” girlfriend, who inspired my first “real” songs. I quickly disabused myself of any obligation to play the rap covers, and I’ve been hugely successful ever since.

I’ve only realized recently how instrumental the stupid covers were to my development as a songwriter and performer. Rap, at its best (NOT 2 CHAINZ GOD I HATE HIM SO MUCH), is remarkably lyrically complex. By getting to know these songs intimately, I think that I probably absorbed a love for the sounds of words. At my lyrical best, I think, I reconcile the sounds of words with their meaning. The best emcees do that as well. Taking already existing lyrical structures and foisting them onto new music also gave me a good feel for phrasing. I don’t do a lot of holding notes, so a lot of what I do with my melodies to add interest ends up being rhythmical.

This cover dates back to sometime in 2005, probably spring. My voice sounds ridiculous. Still, you can hear me trying to figure out harmonies. You can hear that I tried to differentiate each verse by adding some new element or feel each time. “Adam?” Yeah, average Process reader? “I think it’s probably enough that you’re posting an 8 year old recording of you covering Snoop Dogg. Stop making it academic.” Okay, average Process reader. Sorry. “Don’t apologize, just stop.” Okay, sorry.

Can you believe that The Process is old enough to die for its country but not old enough to drink?! Buck fush. This week we’re going to talk about spare parts and letting go. There comes a point in the life of a song where it’s clear what’s going to happen with it. Maybe it soared through school, got accepted to an Ivy, and is going to be the lead single/fan favorite. Maybe it worked really hard in high school, but then lost interest in college. Now it’s working an IT job. Some songs are just townies.

Townies putter around for a while and then they die. Maybe you run into them when you come home every once in a while. At first you’re like, “oh yeah, I remember that kid/song, he was pretty cool,” but then you reconnect and you’re like, “oh, right. At least I can use their failures to feel good about my mitigated successes. Maybe I shouldn’t. Okay, I definitely shouldn’t, but it’s a hard life, and I work hard, dammit.” You don’t know struggle, get over yourself.

So you finally write them off, at least until you’re having trouble writing anything new. All of the sudden that one decent line from the dead-to-you song seems like it would make a great bridge. Really you’re saving it from the unceremonious fate of working at a diner for the rest of its life. I won’t say that any of my best songs are Franken-songs (we all know how the best songs get written, right? #18, bros), but it’s a useful technique.

This song was probably doomed from the start. I forced myself to write this song. Please do not force inspiration, unless you get inspiration from the self-loathing that comes with not having inspiration, which is a despicable, but ultimately pretty reliable wellspring. There was a storm that knocked the power out, so I wanted to write a song using a pen and paper–the old fashioned way. After a fair bit of wranglin’ and wrasslin’, this thing came out. I also stole a Bright Eyes line by accident. Can you find which one? You don’t win anything, but you’re here so you already knew that.

Long time processeers (like buccaneers) will of course have immediately recognized that parts of this song were used in the song “Dead Center,” which was covered way back in The Process #9. They’re better there, don’t you agree? Okay “Ain’t Foolin Nobody With The Lights Out,” you’ve had your fun. Table 4 wants more coffee. Good, uh, seeing you again.

Lyrics:

The insects buzz in stereo incessantly circling the bulb in the flashlight
I watch and listen
I accidentally think out loud about scale and dependence on privilege and how
There are certain things that aren’t really important
I figure it out and then I forget
I call it a night and cover myself up again

By the bedside under the desklight next to the pile of books that I started and left in the middle
Are a hundred blank pages
And I’ll be the first to acknowledge the luxury
And I thank both the prophets who pointed it out to me
And I’ll grow exponentially or I will diminish
And one day I’ll learn how to finally finish

And these days it’s tough to self-sabotage and feel like it did
Back when stomping out fires you’d previously lit
Was a safe and surefire way to steal back a few seconds
Now chasing that high from the first couple nights will only end up wasting even more time
And the more it repeats, the weaker the muscles, the weaker the bite
And pretending that progress is something more dangerous is a habit outdated all but eradicated
But sometimes it’s more about spite than about patience

I’d like to thank all of my triggers
And know I have learned from all the best teachers
There’s a promise I made on which I will deliver
To no longer retreat at the first sign of danger

I studied symmetry for centuries in search of a symbol
To untether my tendencies and ties to the treadmill of time
And unwind and differentiate inside from from outside
So it’s hard to dismiss or deny the disgust
That once creeped but now screams in cacophony and condescending
Cause it’s not a competition

But by all means compete
I am watching and listening
By all means keep circling

By this point it seems like we’ve talked about every kind of song but the “hit.” I’m not delusional enough to think that I’ve got hits, but I do have songs that are more popular than others. In the non-radio world, let’s define a hit as “one of the songs that dumb people in the audience yell for, even though the band is clearly going to play that song already.” John K. Samson addressed this beautifully when I saw him a couple months ago. He opened his set with “Plea From a Cat Named Virtute” and then went right into “One Great City!” Then he played what he wanted to play.

The hits endure, for better or for worse. Even if the outcome is eventually the latter, every hit song was initially extremely exciting. The energy in the room when At The Drive-In wrote “One Armed Scissor” or Sum 41 wrote “Fat Lip” was undoubtedly electric. You know when you’ve hit gold; it just feels different. I was grinning like a fool the first time I listened back to the demo of “Sunday Crossword Challenge.” Just the other night I wrote a song that could turn into something great. I grinned like a fool when I listened back to the demo. So look out for that in 2015 or something.

As a fairly obscure performer, the hits serve another purpose for people on my level. Sure, the true fans will die by the 6 minute slow burn screamy closer, but that might alienate those unfamiliar with your “thing.” Kids today (I hope) are listening to Kerplunk because they heard “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” on the radio. There is a game that you play to make people like you. A stand-up on a late night show has five minutes to get across their shtick. A songwriter may only get three and a half.

The challenge, then, is to make sure that the hit encapsulates you. It should hopefully have elements of the more difficult parts of your style, but it should present them in an accessible way. The people who bought Siren Song of the Counter Culture solely based on “Swing Life Away” were probably pretty put off by “State of the Union.” (Man, this is one reference packed entry. Sorry, but not really. It’s my blog).

If I’m trying to win over a crowd (something I’ve become pretty consistently able to do), this is one of the ones I’ll pull out. It’s short, it’s lively, it’s catchy, and it’s clever. It’s also not a typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus song. I don’t like the game, but I’ll play it. On. My. Terms. Yeah, we’ll see how far that gets me. Okay, bye.

Lyrics:

Where as these cursed strings buzz louder than the bees in all creation
And far from beauty sit my eyes affixed to the cracks in the foundation
There are things I know
There are things I should know better
And for that I will repent when my neck can’t support my head
When my feet can’t support my legs

I feel that I would be remiss to not exist a little longer
For all this negativity one day I’d like to be a father
There are things I’d teach
And things I would be taught
That’s what gives me the perspective that I sometimes think I’ve lost
That I can’t believe some other people have got

You can’t hate people all the time
Trust me I’ve tried

The only way to leave is to go back the way we came
And I do believe we have lost our way
We’re a flock without a shepherd
We are stem cells in a freezer
And the grass on the other side
Is dying

The only things that we can see are the things we knew already
We’ve built over the burial ground of creativity
We’re a broken understanding of a metaphor or theory
So the people to our left and to our right
Are dying

 
Like, OMG it’s my birthday this week. I’m turning 23. Each year since I turned 20, I’ve tried to write a song within a couple weeks of my birthday that can serve as a sort of benchmark. “20” made it onto Carbon Footprint; I think “22” has a decent shot at making the next album. “21,” however, bears the unenviable onus of being a b-side.

The month of May in the year 2010 was a dark time, indeed. “21” finds itself in the company of some of the most directionless songs I’ve ever written, although “21” itself isn’t among of the worst offenders. The “take a small thing and make a big idea out of it” school of songwriting had worked well for me while writing the Reconciliation album (I have made literally no progress on recording that album since its last mention here, but I sometimes think about it fondly). I was in a creative drought and wanted desperately to recreate some of that magic.

My attempts include songs born out of having to kill a mouse, having to kill a spider, bugs being loud, and a designer donut shop opening in my hometown. Riveting stuff. I knew these weren’t good songs while I was writing them, but it really takes a lot for me to give up on a song before it’s over. When I do give up on them, they go into a folder called Abandoned->Incomplete, I think solely so that I can reread them when I want to make myself think I’m bad at doing the things I love, which happens more often than you’d hope (but probably not more than you’d expect).

That digression was all in service of the eventual reveal that “21” was sort of the little engine that could out of a litter of ugly ducklings. It alone was the turtle that made it from the beach back into the ocean without getting eaten by a seagull. We made a full band arrangement of it, and even recorded it for Small Talk. It’ll almost certainly see release one way or another, but I also said that about “And Time Is Slipping Through Your Little Fingers,” a song we recorded for Carbon Footprint.

Anything else I want to say about “21”? I know that this recording sounds pretty awful. I honestly don’t know why. Are we good?

Lyrics:

To symbolize your life
It’s best not to ask why
And should your ears stop ringing
Revel in the silence
And with a sentimental sigh
And nostalgia mostly synthesized
Accept and summon up your spine
And watch the sun rise from the other side

Don’t compare your length of hair
The taste of water
Or the quality of air
Try to limit empty stares
Settle down; don’t think about
The myriad uncertain or underwhelming
Sights and smells, touches, tastes and sounds

What a blessing to believe in and to mean
Written on the corpse of trees or carried by the words you speak

To summarize your life
It’s best not to ask why
And should your ears stop ringing
Revel in the silence
And with a sentimental sigh
And nostalgia mostly synthesized
Accept and summon up your spine
And watch the sun rise from the other side

From bullet belts and cotton thread
To cut up marker’s ink dried carpets
There is something to be said
For popular opinion
And if by science or tinnitus
Synagogue or sweet sweet silence
The revolution will be small and insignificant

As a summary I would like to present
A set of skeletons irrelevant
The gift of growing older and starting to know better
A skill set well accrued thanks to a faulty attitude

As a way of life I would like to transcend
The cynic’s smirk; the misanthrope’s intent
And substitute a stronger, altogether better mantra
A phrase both to repeat and into which I can retreat

I am in love that is enough

Welcome everyone, to the special Passover 2012 (5772 Jew Time) edition of The Process, so decided because it is close to Passover and I say the word “unleavened” in this song. Pull up a pillow (only tonight), and stuff your mouth with all the unsalted matzah you can eat. We’re going in with one hell of a stretched extended metaphor, so gather round like it’s the Rugrats.

An album cycle is like the story of the Exodus. So I’m Pharaoh, obviously. The Jews are the themes I’m writing about. My awesome Egyptian public works projects are the songs. Egypt is the album. Moses is, let us say, the muse. Knowing what you want to write about is a comfortable place to be, like having slaves. It can sometimes feel like the pyramids build themselves, because you hardly have to work! Eventually though, the people of Israel start getting tired and overworked, and it gets to be kind of a headache.

I need to let them go. At a certain point the album writing process is over. First the Plague of Length: It starts taking forever to finish that new shrine to cats. Write and rewrite. A month later, there’s a new song; it’s alright. Second, the Plague of Needless Complication: Add some extra beats and key changes just for the sake of it. Sometimes it’s cool, sometimes you just don’t need all those extra rooms in the tomb, especially because they’re difficult to get back out of. More plagues follow, including the Plague of Meaningless But Technically Impressive Lyrics, and the Plague of Writing Songs About Writing Songs, until the last straw, the final plague.

The Plague of Death of the First Born strikes suddenly one day: “Maybe none of the songs I’ve written for this album were any good in the first place!” And so the revisions start. None of these new ideas are good, like “hey, the Sphinx should probably have a reinforced nose.” They’re mostly “Oh, there’s a much more convoluted way of saying this in that song I wrote 9 months ago that I should leave alone but won’t.” The song, of course, will be ruined (dead, get it?) and so Pharoah tells the Israelites to leave this place. They’re no longer needed. The album writing process is complete. (Any public works projects constructed between this point and the true inspirational burst for the next album cycle exists in a no man’s land and is almost never good).

This song, you ask? This song bears the marks of some of the plagues, but ended up coming out mostly unscathed. When I come back to it in a few months to arrange it for a full band, I think it’ll be fine. I promise I’ll change the part about the crucifixion/fig, and obviously I’ll write a real ending for the song.

We made it through the metaphor. We’re all going to be okay. Next year in Jerusalem.

Lyrics:

Malignant or mailing it in
I’m not often talking
On some level I’m unleavened
Long, lost, ribald
It’s not a fucking crucifixion
It’s a fig
And as my anger grows
So it castrates my intelligence

Stem the ascent
Plant today tomorrow’s safety nets
Circumvent then pirouette
Ad infinite

Only holy ghosts can boast such comfortable repose
Last and least leave it to me to breathe with certainty

Life’s already lisping
Nevermind a tailspin
A steady stint in
For crimes of passion

I killed, I stole
I am comfortable in my foxhole
Sold, unsouled
If such words could ever be told

Death already listens
He’s got the out of print editions
A steady stint in
For crimes of passion

I killed, I stole
I am comfortable in my foxhole
Sold, unsouled
If such words could ever be told
If such lies could slide
But as symptoms of pride
We’re required to counter the claims
Crazed, not the least bit ashamed

Ah, the song to yourself. Is there a more melodramatic medium? Probably, yes. But the second-person song to yourself—especially the “things will get better” song to yourself—can be pretty bad. This one is for me, by me, made possible by viewers like you (I know you’re not viewers (http://matescast.com)).

I think if I were to make a list of the songs I’ve written that I like the least, the top ones would mostly be the songs where I step outside my lyrical and narrative comfort zone. Not stepping out of your comfort zone is a terrible way to grow as an artist, and is bad news for any musician other than the Red Hot Chili Peppers. (Maybe from now on I’ll use the 50 Cent approach to getting famous and just try to pick fights with people vastly more famous than me until one of them finally responds and I consequently sell 10 million albums). I don’t love the “story” songs, and I especially don’t love the didactic directives: “you do X, you should do Y because otherwise you’ll die and no one wants that, except for you, but you shouldn’t, so do Y.”

The other thing that comes into the issue of perspective is age. I wrote this song when I was 18 years old and about to go to college. I commonly look back at my life at various points and think, “wow, I didn’t know shit back then.” “Back then” can be as recently as one month, depending on if I read something particularly interesting on Wikipedia within the last month. Since I wrote this song, I’ve written about 120 more. I didn’t know shit back then.

More than likely, I still don’t. I’m 22. I’ll be 23 this month I thought I was writing great songs back then, and I think I’m writing great songs now. They can’t both be true. I think I’m in a bad place at the moment because my cats keep slinking away from me. This is what you wanted. The you is me. Do you see what I did there?

The title makes me cringe. Anything left to say to introduce this song? It’s schlocky, but it’s honest. I’m embarrassed, but I’m sharing it. I’ve got one hand in my pocket and the other one is making a peace sign.

Lyrics

I had dinner tonight
With my previous life
And we talked about the weather
And he said that I’d changed
But I still feel the same
So I packed for my departure

I said I’m worried I was
Still that pessimest one
The kid who never bothered
And he looked in my eye
And he said “You and I
Both know you are no martyr

“But be that as it may
Soon you’ll have gone away
And I’m making a bet that it won’t be as bad as you say
I believe in you and I’m sure that you’ll be great”

I’m a sinner tonight
But I never had time for religion
I’ve kept myself busy
Milking a mental condition
He said “there’s no shame
In using your pain
To make up for your disinterest
If one person here
Enjoys what they hear
Then you’ve finally made your difference”

But be that as it may
This time has been a waste
So if it’s all the same, I think that I will stay
And he looked at me, and he punched me in the face

He said get up and don’t look down
And get out there and make me proud
I’m making a bet that it won’t be as bad as you say
I believe in you and I’m sure that you’ll be great

Let’s set the stage. It’s around late 2006/early 2007 and I’m trying to write enough songs to make a full length so that I can eventually be friends with John Nolan or Kanye West. I’d previously recorded and released a 5-song EP called “Taking Out The Trash.” I’m reasonably sure the only person with a copy of that is my therapist I was seeing at the time. Every song I wrote between that EP and “Burning Up” ended up on “Burning Up.” (Look, I know that quotation marks aren’t the right punctuation for albums, but my WordPress install strips out formatting and I can’t care enough to figure out why).

I had written 11 songs by late February. At some point along the way, I decided that cold/hot as a metaphor for depression was an original thought, and I called those the Burning Up Demos. In early March, I wrote this song, and god damn was I proud of this song.

It’s funny – I wrote this song 5 years ago, but looking over it I actually still find some things I stand behind. There are little bits and pieces of techniques that I still use today. These days I’m almost allergic to songs that don’t have 10 different sections. Despite that, I’ve always had a soft spot for this kind of song. People who like “real music” will probably say that Bob Dylan did this kind of thing all the time, but my first real experience with it was hearing Bright Eyes – Waste of Paint for the first time on a Musicmatch Jukebox streaming radio station in 2003. I like the challenge of keeping people interested with words. Honestly, someone of my favorite songs I’ve ever written are the “same chords, lots of words” kind.

Also, this song ends with a Tom Waits reference. Pretty good for a 17 year old kid.

Lyrics:

I’ve been thinking again
About how I tend to shut down
Like the stars in the sky
When there’s too much light down on the ground
I disappear without a trace
In shame, I try to hide my face
Cause when asked to do something great
I blend into the crowd

I’ve been sinking again
In that dangerous part of my mind
The one where hopelessness, envy
And self deprecation reside
And it pulls me in like I’ve stepped in sand
And each thought I have is a marching band
Discordant notes, but with a soldier’s stance
And so I fight this war

I’ve been lying again
To myself and my friends for some time
I’ve been playing this game
Where I take a name I get assigned
And I flail my arms, but speak no words
And I hear guesses, saying “I’m not sure”
But when the game is over, and it’s not my turn
The charade doesn’t stop

I’ve been smiling again
To strangers I meet on the street
Each one has a story
A scarring that makes them complete
And as they board their bus or ride their train
I wonder if I picked their brains
If I would find out that we’re all the same
A people out of touch

I’ve been singing again
To the dismay of a couple of men
They say they’ve seen it before
And I’m doing the same thing again
I know I may not break into new ground
But I’m sure I’m making honest sounds
So don’t pigeonhole me with that goddamn noun
Yeah, keep your adjectives away

Now I’m passing out on tile floors
And I rest my back on wooden doors
And I’ve laid my head down here before
So it’s here I’ll call my home

So now we’ve finally got this song. It starts slow and in 6/8 and I say some words that have internal rhymes and have alliteration. Then it gets fast and has some different parts. Nothing much has changed. How compelling is this writing? Let’s dig into the song a bit. I’m going to let you in.

I’m okay with the first verse, pretty sure I dislike most of the second verse, and I love the third verse. I think it moves out of the slow part at just the right time. I’m always looking to incorporate more humor into my songwriting, but I’m unsure if the little jokes work. Is head and shoulders as stupid as I think it is 50% of the time? I know how to write songs, but this is what it’s like at the beginning of a cycle. I’m a little lost puppy whose eyes aren’t open yet, getting knocked down, but getting up again. I feel like I may have used that reference once before, but I’m way too lazy to check.

There are a couple of themes here that I think are worth revisiting, or I guess re-revisiting. The first of which is that there are other people in the world who are going about their lives. I don’t factor into those lives, nor should I necessarily. The second is contempt for myself in context of the bigger picture. I had the singular goal of making myself seem as unsympathetic as possible in the stanza about Googling myself. Maybe it ends on a note of optimism. Calling it now – this is my sellout album.

Lyrics:

I gotta keep believing my best work’s ahead of me
Even if my best foot’s not
Four words: just keep moving forwards

Flowing like a sundress stretched taut and stressed
I am a fabrication cased-in glass
Don’t touch; how’s that for a mantra?

Never really relevant, as evidenced by everything
The hours of irreverence and arrogance and emptiness
Lord knows: I’m blessed if I’m bulldozed

Never better, front and center

Never met a bone I wouldn’t break
To exchange my fakes for actual fates
For heart attacks, not dandruff flakes

I should be head and shoulders above
This kind of amateur stuff

There are sirens outside, because there are people alive
And I’m thinking about dying while I’m sitting inside

With my sweatpants stained and a stomachache
I watch my fingers type my name
And I spend what feels like several days
Ingesting strangers’ strangling praise

Or better yet
Their vitriol and sulfur
A prod and a primer

There are sirens outside, because there are people alive
And I’m thinking about dying while I’m sitting inside
Never better — I’ve still got time, but tell that to the desperate mind
Front and center — I’ve still got time

There are songwriters far more famous than me (not going to name names) whose songs are about things like getting their house broken into or getting their bike stolen. These people are no doubt talented, but the lyrics don’t appeal to a greater meaning. Nothing says they have to, of course, but I’m just not sure what kind of connection people are making other than “my bike could get stolen too. I’d also be pissed. Cool story bro, for real, not sarcastic.”

So I’m usually pretty wary of writing anecdotally unless I’m sure that the story says something a little bigger than its face value. When I wrote Reconciliation, I was in a different head space and I started making those connections. The record is about making little things big, and about humanity. The impetus for this song was legitimately a colony of mosquitoes living in my toilet. It’s all true.

Since this project is also ostensibly about the evolution of a song, you should know that this song is a lot faster now. Oh, you want to know when the album is coming out? I know better than to make promises. Eh, preferably this year.

Lyrics

I must commend my dear friend mosquito
For making my toilet bowl his humble home
He taught me in the face of hardship you can never sink too low

I would never jeopardize anything’s survival
So long as that same thing stayed the hell away from mine
I’ve probably killed a thousand bugs plus countless more I stepped on
Accidentally

That makes me a hypocrite
But everything is relative
If we always sweat the small stuff we will dry up
I’m just another human being
Oblivious to everything
Another evolutionary miracle

I’d like to think that there’s at least one thing redeemable
In each and every one of our seven billion souls
I’ve logged 20 years and counting in the field of people watching
Regrettably I haven’t quite found out the things I wanted
Cause for everything that moves me there are ten things that confuse me
But I’m no saint myself

That makes me a hypocrite
But everything is relative
With the world up on our shoulders it will crush us
I’m just another human being
Oblivious to everything
Another evolutionary miracle

The only public place that I’ve ever seen true love
Was the baggage claim at the Baltimore airport
A father reunited with his two excited children
I probably would have cried but right then a cop rode by on a segway
And he looked ridiculous so I laughed instead

That makes me a hypocrite
But everything is relative
If we don’t pull together now, we may never get the chance
Cause all of use are human beings
Oblivious to everything
Disdainful and remarkable
Disgraceful and incredible
Another evolutionary miracle

The year is 2009 and a naïve boy by the name of Adam Linder has just recording full band demos for an album he wrote, called Carbon Footprint. It is July. He’s pretty sure the album should be out by year’s end, and he runs his fat mouth on the internet talking about it. While working relentlessly on a full album’s worth of work he’s about to scrap, he writes a new song. The first fledgling candidate for the next record! Nascent. Not going to make the album, as it turns out.

That song is this song and this song is called “We Remember the Freeman.” It’s the first song I wrote for what would eventually become Small Talk. I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of the song/album cycle. Yes, you just start writing songs until you have enough for a full length, but I think it’s more than that. The first few songs of any project are exploratory, serving as canaries forging bravely ahead into coal mines of alternate tunings or vague ideas for concept albums. If the canary dies and the song sucks, don’t keep mining there.

By the 5th or 6th song in a cycle, I’ve almost certainly written some songs that are going to end up being released. The themes are solidifying, and there’s a musical thread that is hopefully obvious to more people than just me. I know what I’m trying to say, and over the next couple dozen songs, eventually I’m going to say it as well as I can. After that point, the songs start to feel less urgent, less interesting, and more of a chore to write. That’s the end of the album cycle. DONE, DONE, ONTO THE NEXT ONE

This song has the seeds of certain motifs present on Small Talk. I think there’s a juxtaposition of darker subject matter with a lighter, more humorous tone. Does the penguin thing work? Philosophers disagree. In any case it’s a start. Speaking of philosophers, I turned this song in as a final exam in an existentialism class I took, and now I have a music technology degree. You get out of college what you put into it, folks.

Lyrics:

Like my very first pair of shoes
On a shelf in a closet in a room that I don’t use
Maybe there is something you forgot
Maybe there is something you have known all along

Like the very first words I spoke
Confident mis-associated phonemes
We amplify our meaning until we’re screaming
Until we’re seething with sanctified believings
And you are leaving and I am leaving
There is paralysis in seeing

Even considering the healing
The thoughts and prayers that bounce back
When they hit the ceiling
Because sound is just a medium
Unimpressed by whatever human feeling

And while a public crisis
Quarter life gives rise to sleepless
Night shifts working
Like Einstein through his dying days
To tie together everything
And the private process
To justify like Dostoyevsky’s prison time
Is just the movie about the penguins

Where they walk across Antarctica
To the same snow their life started on
The directioned imprint in their blood
We are driven by the sound of quiet
Sure we’ll find the loudest lie
If enough people scream it
It’s easy to believe it
I have only been inside a graveyard a single time
But it feels like I’m always driving by
Riding southbound into storm clouds
As I get older there are fewer things I fear
But with enough people leaving
Even a skeptic starts to wish that he believed it