Notes
Lyrics
when i’m in love im not at my best
I have no shame and I have no defense
i traveled the world to no use
when my canvas is blank, you are my muse
i have a notion that i can’t express
i had a dream i was holding my breath
i woke up and now i love you to death
you remind me of someone i saw on the screen
or maybe i was you, and the king was the queen
i wandered port to port, there’s poetry there, don’t you know
a shadow in a castle window as rain turns to snow
i have a notion that i can’t express
i had a dream i was holding my breath
i woke up and now i love you to death
let me draw you, mademoiselle
oh, i will draw you well
i blink my eyes, and across from me, see your face
the sun rises and every cliche falls into place
it isn’t complicated to explain what we got
a set of rhyming couplets that end where they start
I had a dream that I can’t express
I have a notion I’m holding my breath
I’m awake and I will love you to death
Notes
January 2026
The first line of this song has been in my notes for a while. Probably because it’s true, or true enough. Now, as I see it, there’s old guy being in love, and there’s young guy being in love. Drilling down a bit deeper, there’s old guy being in love who just thinks he’s in love, but is actually obsessed, most usually with some bright young creature to recapture his youth becuz he’s unhappy with his life and subconsciously wants to destroy everything. Which is creepy, and sad. And, ya know, appears to happen often enough to be a thing; in song, stage, and literature both ironic and non. But there’s also old guy who has learned from all his (and others’) dumb shit and knows a good thing when he’s got it and is in the “correct” kind of love, where it’s healthy and decidedly not creepy and proves self-replenishing and is perhaps more miraculous than any of us realize, perhaps because no one writes about it, perhaps because it does not contain much drama, and perhaps because it appears boring, from the outside looking in. There is, also, young guy who is in love and doesn’t know jack and can’t handle getting a kiss before drowning into obsession. Maybe you know the type. If he ain’t careful the wrong kind of young guy can turn into the wrong kind of old guy, and onward goes this thing of ours, with more love-centric songs, stage, and literature both fictional and non-, ad finitum.
This does not account for all recipes of love by any means. Alls I’m saying is, in any scenario, at any age, love can disarm you. Big news.
I don’t remember where the chorus idea came from. Lines just come to ya, and they stick. I don’t know why a random one does and another one doesn’t. I keep them all. You never know. I’ve learned not to judge. Let em come to ya. Just write em down and decide if they’re crap later. Resistance will do its best in the moment to make you think everything you’re coming up with is junk, and you can’t let it win. (That’s writer’s block, in my opinion; if you are cool with producing crap every now and then, cool with the idea that feeling crappy sometimes about your work is part of the process and may not necessarily mean that you or your work is, in fact, crap, you will never again experience writer’s block. When you start writing something you’ll either believe it’s the best shit ever, or the worst shit ever, and in both cases, you’re wrong. But ya gotta plow ahead and just keeping making your shit. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again because I dunno how else to say it.)
The verse guitar riff is another thing I had sitting around forever. It’s a very R.E.M.-ish thing, obviously, they’re part of my DNA and it’s a wonder more of my stuff doesn’t sound like a blatant rip off, but I leaned into it this time. Once I had that riff I had no idea how to kick off the song, it seemed kinda underwhelming to just start that way, so I broke it down into chords, slid those chords all the way up the neck, and boom, the intro was born. I like sparkly, jangly guitars, and I feel about them the way I feel about chocolate cake: delicious, satisfying, sometimes transcedent, but not appropriate at every meal. A little outta tune in this instance but that’s ok.
So it worked out to be song construction 101: intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, intro reprise, verse, final chorus with a bit of a twist, and the A-minor right before the final chord being a hallmark REM tell, although I was feeling more of a Squeeze vibe when I did it. (I appear to be saying my age without saying my age, but whaddya gonna do.)
I don’t like to just end, there’s always gotta be something nice about the ending that lets you know it’s an ending. Beethoven never just ends, he takes you on a little journey, calls it back, he sets up a coda, all kinds of magic that can only come from workshopping an idea for-fucking-ever and somehow knowing when to stop; REM does the same, but more briskly as befits the pop and rock majesty born of four genuises; there’s always that final chord you didn’t see coming or something to distinguish this moment from the rest.
This was a Garageband mess of a file that I had sitting around for almost a year and half, so to be honest, I don’t remember how I landed on the vocal sound, but man I really like it. Spring reverb or slapback or something? A little gift to myself from the past. Reminds me of Pretty Persuasion. At least, that’s what I was going for, I’m not sure how accurate the comparison actually is in the end, but the goal was to get a feeling across, a sensation, rather than a direct description of love, which is futile anyway. Cuz the singer is a bit dopey, but he knows what he wants to say. So the lyrics are there, they’re intentional, they’re definitely telling you a story, but if you don’t hear them or understand them all the way, that’s just fine, too.
But a year in the archives, man. I don’t know why I circled around this one for so long, why it sat for so long. And I was working on other things, to be sure, but still. There’s a nice warm feeling in having a bunch of ideas that could work — just look at the zillion voice memos I have on my phone — but you can drown in that, you can make half-baked starter ballast all your life and convince yourself you’re being productive, but it’s lightweight, it’s a sleepy helium balloon that’s five days old and floating in the middle of the room, eventually you gotta take one and do that thing where you just sit there and come up with a bunch of shitty takes, because that’s the only way to get to the good one. You gotta finish the job. And that process is endlessly weird, because breaching the amniotic sac and stepping into that world is so off-putting you’ll do almost anything in procrastiation, but once you’re inside, it’s an electric, echoey, mineralized chamber where the brain finally gets to do what it was put on this earth to do, which all I can say with certainty is, ain’t doomscrolling.
This is the hill I will die on: every person has the ability to sit down quietly with themselves and write. Not meditate, not clear their mind or be mindful, but sit down and engage in writing. You don’t need a piano, a guitar, or a typewriter; just a pencil, an envelope, post it, whatever. I hear people say they can’t do it. They don’t have that gene, or that gear. I don’t believe that. There’s nothing simpler, and more magical, than the ability of a human being to sit with itself and touch a pen to paper, or fingertip to keyboard, or whatever, and write down a bunch of stuff that, whether meaningful or -less, will enable said being to connect with itself.
It’s my impression that many people are put off, feeling that you have to write something great, long, or monetizable. It’s a competition of some sort. That’s bullshit. Our culture has confetti’d our own confidence in ourselves, with FOMO, YOLO, etc. No one else need read it, no one else should read it. There is a magical moment every time, when I write some shit down that was absolutely 100% not in my head just a moment before and I have to wonder where it came from. But the answer is that it came from me, and so further deepens the mystery. I believe there is an unconscious fear of engaging with that unknown part of ourselves, and that’s why we procrastinate. That unopened attic in our head can appear dark and scary, but it contains all the materials for growth. Once you go up there a few times, lay down a throw rug, sweep up, pound down all the nails sticking out, etc., returning ain’t such a thing.
So whether you call it a diary, a journal, a commonplace book, a draft email, or whatever, people have the means and ability to write down words. It doesn’t have to be lyrics, or poetry, or the great American novel; it doesn’t have to be anything at all to anyone else but you. And after a person gets over the awkwardness of doing something that has no third party validation, said person will find the magic in communicating with him or her or their self.
It’s a thing, it exists, it’s in all humans, it’s waiting.
This, I believe. Thank you.
Lyrics
Voice of an angel, I ain’t got one
Ya know the crew that cleans up the dead ain’t ever done
You gotta nothin to say, but you gotta say something
What else can you do but quote the king
You’re so young
No one’s told you yet
There’s beauty out there
And it needs all the help it can get
You leave in September to see your girl
A choir waits to sing your praises, cherubs to set her pearls
When your hero lets you down are you gonna do the same?
Quote the king, pass the blame?
You’re so young
Has no one shown you yet
There’s beauty out there
And it needs all the help it can get
There they go, church bells ring the evening hour
Swans come in on the water, the day is closing like a flower
This is the moment to listen to everything
This is the time to kill the king
You’re still young
You’ve got all you need to live
Find the beauty out there
It needs all the help you can give
Notes
It’s a dangerous time, when all seems well. I pause, I reflect, I notice, and I think, “Hmm. Well now. Everything sure does seem to be fine. Perhaps I have earned this moment of serenity. This ‘down time.’”
But that’s dangerous. And stupid. Shall we say, stupid dangerous. To be kind, let’s call it a moment of wishful weakness. Every moment of repose in a state of contentment is dangerous. Especially now, these days, this timeline, etc.
We know better by now, don’t we? It’s always something. Constantly something. Just cuz you’re not aware of it doesn’t mean it ain’t happening, waiting to pounce when ya least need it. Contentment is reckless. Only thing worse is avarice and desire. Not good things to have right now. Don’t imagine what could be had. Seek confirmation of all that could be lost. Gratitude? Sure. Go for it. Contentment? I don’t think there is a worse moment or greater delusion. It’s exhausting.
The Buddhist concept of nirvana is, as I understand it, not a place or a state of happiness or dopey serenity, but a freedom from desire. Life is joy and sorrow together, says the Buddha, like a fish and water, horse and hay, pancakes and syrup, I dunno, maybe some other kind of metaphor; but nirvana is an acceptance of it all. No ego, no wants, no seeking of validation, and not even an understanding of the big all; just acceptance. I’m not a Buddhist, I’m barely anything, but it makes sense to me. And the price of entry is completely free, you don’t have to buy shit, which is probably why we in the western world avoid it. We like to buy. We’re at a loss without something to buy. It’s a poor man’s doorway to validation.
So much of our society is geared toward manufacturing validation through a purchased experience; with influencers, FOMO, YOLO, what have you, nirvana seems like a million miles away. I don’t know why we’re so easily manipulated into it, why we crave validation, need it, practically die without it. I’m certainly not above it. I don’t think I’m crippled when it doesn’t come my way, but man, it sure feels good to get some. Who doesn’t want to know that their shit is working for someone else. Hearing it from someone in the form of a compliment or encouragement is one thing, I suppose. Seeking it via commerce is inevitably hollow. I’ve been there and done it. It can get kinda desperate. Bill Hicks declared a death sentence on all people in advertising, for capitalizing on our greatest weakness as a course of business and ethics being beside the point. I can kinda see his POV. And I’m sure he was joking. Aren’t we all. Lol.
Supposedly, there are people who get by on their own juice, self-validating, chugging along, nuclear-powered, with their 5am cold plunge, 9 cups of ferrett coffee, fasting, prayers, whatever. Or at least, it seems like it. Online, in particular, where one can curate the presentation of one’s existence, where the patron saints of self-doubt flourish unfettered, anything is possible.
But the only certainty I have, and I don’t got much, is that no one is truly self-sufficient. No one is self-made. There is always a measure of support from somewhere. And yes, validation = support. People cannot live without some degree of validation.
And by live I don’t mean physically, literally exist; it ain’t like water and they ain’t gonna die without it; I mean like, truly live. Getting the most bang for yer buck outta this life, and so forth. If you don’t have that validation, that support, that love, whatever, all you’re doing is surviving. And man there’s a wide spectrum of survival, ain’t there. It can clean up nice but most of it ain’t so pretty. Navigating this shitstorm of a culture we have ad hoc constructed for ourselves just isn’t possible on your own. It’s too brutal and relentless. And if someone appears to be doing just fine without, well, they’re compensating somewhere.
Humans, humanity, whatever you wanna call it, we’re all tied together, despite all the crazy divisions we have concocted for ourselves and all our horseshit sanctifying “individuality.” Your own mileage may vary but we as a people, society, species, whatever, are so far from where we oughtta be, need to be, in terms of oneness with each other, brotherhood, atonement, at-one-ment, however you wanna say it, that it’s genuinely, deeply discouraging if you stop to reflect on it. We desperately need help from each other and it does not appear that help is on the way.
So I try not to reflect on it, big picture. If you focus on individuals, look at the tree instead of the Endor forest moon, I gotta say, you can feel some hope. Ya buy yer banana at 7-11, ask how the day is going, say have a nice day back, so on. People smile, there’s a shared moment of something that is ostensibly nothing but is actually pregnant with quite a bit, like a redwood seed or something, and ya carry on. It’s almost enough to go on, these individual interactions. Be nice, get some nice back, and holy shit, ya feel good. It’s a crazy enough idea to work, I tells ya. The world does not need another entrepreneur, iconoclast, individual, or god help us, disrupter, blah blah blah; it needs a few more professionally, committed, dedicated, empathetic, plain old nice people. That’s all.
So I like to keep it microcosmic, cuz ya read the paper and whoa nelly. Shit is falling apart real fast. I can’t do it, truth be told. I try, but I get a pang in my stomach or pelvic floor, my inner lotus wilts; I dunno, and I gotta shut it off. Can’t read it. Makes me wanna take the family and move to Papua New Guinea. And sure, you will hear that shit’s always been like this, just read the news back in the day and you’ll see it’s the same shit different epoch, but man, that ain’t a consolation. Ya mean we’ve always been a train wreck? We never had it together? Those “golden days” were just as dumb, evil, and self-destructive, and all we did was sweep that domestic S&M under the carpet and tread the same fabric again? Who could feel better knowing that?
That said. I ain’t a dummy, I am well aware that America was and is a vast, towering, listing-in-the-wind scaffold of popsicle sticks built around a brick chimney of antipathy toward our fellow man, in all pigments of masonry. Once upon a time there was an experiment. Let’s enfranchise all these slave-owning guys with an economy on the backs of the disenfranchised and elect fellow enfranchised slave-owning guys to keep it up. Two centuries in and hows it going? Well, our entire economy is still powered by the disenfranchised, despite rather galactic efforts to the contrary, so I guess we’re nothing if not consistent. But the disparity seems worse than ever. Our culture celebrates quarterly earnings that are underwritten by overseas jobs we’d never dream of for our own kids. How that never enters the conversation is beyond me. Hire wage slaves, see stratospheric profits, and reap orgasmic praise. No ethics, just earnings and ejaculation. Capitalism is entirely underpinned by othering and dehumanization and we can’t pat ourselves on the back hard enough for selling it to ourselves as a digestible morality. A wise person once said that humanity is not rational, it is rationalization. Amen, fella, ma’am, whoever that was.
So not only are we myopic it seems we’re dumber than ever now. We’ve got all kinds of resources at our disposal and we’re racing to discredit or disabuse ourselves of them, or just monetize them down into atomic dust. At least in the industrial revolution we agreed on physics, science, whatever. Now it’s a cult thing. The opportunity to sway with facts has passed us by. The sky is poisoned? Nah, that’s a hoax. We got labor problems? It’s people sneaking into our yard under cover of night to pick strawberries when they take a break from mass rape. The world is an unfair and unjust horror? If the man upstairs dealt ya a shit hand, ya probably deserve it somehow. It’s a test and a trial and on and on. See? Everything is fine. Apple cart maintained.
And I get it, I guess. It’s all pretty scary out there if ya put down your phone for a minute or two. Terrifying to look at the injustice and indifference of the universe and realize we’re kinda just out there, nailed to the ground in the antithesis of a sensory deprivation chamber, while the rest of reality is a directionless void operating on a train schedule as fortuitous as it is barely comprehensible. Imposing order on that, as humans are wont to do, can involve some painful mental gymnastics. But even more difficult, apparently, is contemplating the amount of self-sacrifice it might take to make the distribution of fairness just a little bit more even for everyone. That’s a third rail these days: asking people to do or even consider feeling something uncomfortable regarding their property tax for the benefit of a buncha strangers like refugees and immigrants. That’s “radical.” Helluva racket we have going here.
I realize full well that not everyone has this kind of antipathy. But all evidence indicates that there’s more than enough.
Anyhow, it’s well past being a slippery slope; it’s a cliff that we’ve already gone over but we’re still in the car, shit’s floating around like a vomit comet and impact is anyone’s guess away.
So. To the point. This song.
I get home from work, I get about 30-35 minutes to play some guitar, after making dinner, picking up kids, dropping off kids, what have you. This was a C chord to F chord thing. Lazy shit. I was talking to my daughter. She was telling me about a song she wanted to write, and we started recording something for her. But right before we did, like, the moment before I pressed record, I played the opening chord change to this song on my acoustic. I think I was even talking to her while I did it, not even thinking, strumming out of habit, capo on the third or fourth fret. So even though mechanically it’s boring and routine, it sounded different. But nothing transcendent, you understand. So’s I strum this thing and who knows why, but somewhere inside me, a fox’s ear twitched 120 degrees. Caught it. The sound stayed with me. And I knew, I was gonna be all right for that day. I had it. And I don’t mean to go on about it like it’s a stroke of genius. It’s nothing I hadn’t played a zillion times before. But that day, that time, with the barometric pressure or humidity or who knows what, it got a hook in me, and even now, typing it here, it seems miraculous to just say it, but I sat down with that delicate ribbon of tinsel and a few days later, crash boom bam, bun comes out of the oven.
And this bears a moment of digression. It needn’t be something earth shattering or original. It’s not about producing something good or amazing. Or even about feeling good or amazing. It’s about producing. You gotta make something. You gotta sit down and connect with that part of yourself that isn’t eating shit all day, that part of you that will never buckle under pressure, never be affected by validation, or status, or how much money you have or ain’t got, the part of yourself that is deep inside ya, that doesn’t care or even fucking know about Microsoft Excel, TikTok, yer step count, not getting a seat on the train, or whatever, and just needs to tap the vein of the goddam universe, whether it’s a Jungian archetype or Jessica Alba, or the dream you had last night or a myth you’re fascinated with but don’t quite know all the details to, or some memory that makes you crumple or an ex-girlfriend or boyfriend or subway missed connection that just sticks with you, and for the love of god don’t judge it because ain’t none of it don’t gotta make any fucking sense at all, just tap into it and process it like only you, with your DNA and BMI and ear and eye and hair color, like only you can, to make use of the experiences and equipment life has given you, to make some new shit outta that shit that was not there before.
And once it’s done, it’s you and you are it. Now you’re a little different, and the world’s a little different, because you put something new into it and yourself. And maybe no one knows but who cares. You know. And you gotta do it, or that part of yourself that makes it possible for ya will just take a siesta, not because it’s vengeful or vindictive, but it will hibernate for goddam decades if you don’t put it to work. It needs you, and you need it. And you gotta make this shit, even if it’s shit, because that is why we were put on this earth. Not to get famous or to make money or kill mosquitos or evangelize on behalf of cast iron skillets, but to know ourselves and make our shit.
That’s the only way to slough this insane culture we didn’t ask to be born into and no sane person would sign off on if it was put down on paper in front of them as a plan. You gotta have your own shit and believe in it, because that shit is you and no one else is gonna. That connection with yourself is how you matter in this goddam frickin universe. You ain’t being yourself spending your precious, finite human bandwidth on a store locator trying to find an energy drink.
And every single person has this in them, this I believe more than anything. There ain’t no god out there checking his list for your arrival at the end of eternity; it’s all inside, and our world makes it incredibly difficult to find it for some reason — no reason, actually — and it is a tragic conundrum. But it’s right there. You, my friend, are all you got to work with. Simple, but not easy. Like most things. Just an opinion.
So anyways. The riff itself is gossamer. I wasn’t feeling heavy drums. I default to reverb. It felt right. I wanted it to sound like a Dylan bootleg from the 80s. Raw, not too affected, but like it was happening not just in front of you but in the room with you. If you reached out and touched it, or you put the right cheat code into the console, you could play or sing along with it or join the band with your little noodling there. You’re in it. The chorus is a little hokey but fuck it, that’s how I feel sometimes. Whaddya gonna do.
Anyway, that’s what I was gunning for. I think I got it. Maybe not. But there’s always next time. Thank you.