This was written in fall,'82. I wrote the lyrics in a fit of depression one morning and very nearly threw them out the next day. But I put them aside and eventually read them again, and thought they might make good blues lyrics. So I kept them.
One night at the Teen Center, I was practicing and the chords came together. I read along with the lyrics, changed the chords to fit their feel, and in a couple of hours, it was done.
The 8-string bass makes its first appearance here, and stays for the rest of the album. The bass is an old Hagstrom ('65?). The Hagstrom electric 12-string that first appears on "Water From The Moon" is its evil twin. As it turns out, the 8-string still has yet to be the featured bass on an album again, its place taken by the Frankensteinian Olsen P-bass. The Hagstrom has made guest appearances throughout the years though, on such tracks as "Climb Out" and "Mercury Jones".
The lead guitar running through the song was just something that happened in the studio, and was completely improvised.
There's a quatrain of lyrics that never made it into the song. I was going from memory, and I forgot them. When the song was resurrected for the band Cold Sky, I left it the way it ended up on the album.
lyrics
Morning
The sun warms my skin
And it makes me feel
Like I could throw it all away again.
Warm wind in my hair
A fresh breeze in the air
But it's not there for me to enjoy
So I just can't care
If I die tomorrow
Don't you cry for me
Take the day off and sit in the sun
And laugh because I'm free.
Evening
Too many memories come at night.
No one to share them with
No one to touch
The room rings with silence
Past achievements gather dust
So many self-inscribed trophies...
What do they matter?
If I die tomorrow
Don't you cry for me
Take the day off and sit in the sun
And laugh because I'm free.
Freedom
You know it's all I want
Just to exist
Take some time to enjoy life
It's too bad that man must be machinery
Whose only purpose is to oil itself
Man is not perpetual motion
And machines never cry.....
Sometimes it's so damned hard to see
Just what's left around here to be.
The sun still shines, maybe an answer's there.....
Kind of find it hard to care.....
All the things I'll never see
All the things I'll never know
All the things I'll never be
All the things I'll never show
But these are speculations and as such, useless
And failure's just a state of mind, right?
But if I die tomorrow,
Don't you cry for me
Take the day off and sit in the sun
And laugh because I'm free.
credits
from A Man Who Was Here,
released March 19, 2014
Lyrics and music: '82. Instruments: drums, guitar, 8-string bass, vocals.
The Long Island metal band's third album etches arena-sized hooks into their jagged compositions, deftly balancing experimental and poppy inclinations. Bandcamp Album of the Day May 12, 2022
