The rule, I think, is that every girl you date for a considerable amount of time gets three songs written about her: the beginning song, the middle song, and the end song. No one is owed any more than that, but it’s completely at the discretion of the songwriter whether more songs are warranted. I think the entirety of Nevermind was written about Toby Vail, but I could have my facts mixed up.
Anyway.
This is a beginning song, both because of when I wrote it and what I wrote it about. It’s essentially a summation of how two people got together, blah blah blah, and is very self-referential, which I generally don’t dig. The problem is that the lyrics are kind of what they are or what they evolve into, and conscious thought and decision-making don’t really enter into the lyrical equation for me, ever. That is, unless I have to pare down a song because it’s too long, which is certainly a common occurrance. P.S. I’m listening to “London Bridges” right now, and I’m convinced that Sam is an infinitely better lyricist than he gives himself credit for. Modesty is a virtue.
There’s a lot of eyeball imagery in this song. Then it moves on to weather. If that doesn’t prove that there is no rhyme or reason to the way my lyrics come out, I don’t know what does. Musically, the song is almost “A Day In The Life,” but I think Sam’s banjo work kind of gets us away from that. I have my reservations about how good this song is, both because I think it’s just plodding and boring and because I can’t stand doing the acoustic thing anymore (with the exception of “Please! Don’t Go,” which I think is about ten times better than this song ever was).
On the demo version we recorded with Chris Player from Miles From Land, JP (our former drummer and Chris’s little brother) played bongos in this kind of horse-trot rhythm that I was always kind of unsure about. The song has a very specific gait to it that I almost lose when singing, so anything that doesn’t lock right into what the guitar is doing tends to rub me the wrong way. Listening to it, I like the drumming, but playing it with the bongos was always a bitch. JP also played a melodica that Chris bought him on the outro part, originally done by me on a harmonica. The melodica wins. During the choruses, CP had JP tune between stations on a radio, an effect that almost makes it sound like a Luftwaffe is in the background. Or maybe it ties into the third verse. I don’t know.
Also, CP had me and Sam do these “Ah-ah” vocals in the background of the last chorus, which Sam and I then modified and traded off. It sounds good, especially when the outro kicks in, with the reverby melodica and the weird guitar riff I invented five seconds before we started recording.
Anyway.
[I've bracketed lyrics that have been in the song for a year but have recently been cut out to knock out the perceived boredom this song generates when we play it.]
blue eyes, I’m dying to keep the game alive
we’re too good at hiding which side we lie in
it’s taking too much time, we’re no good at finding
[the red dyes and glasses, your favorite disguise to try and hide in]
[I'll buy the sizes and colors you've implied, you'll still deny me]
we tried to fight it
we tried to deny it
we tried to hide it behind our eyes
we tired of hiding
[blues eyes, I'll try to keep them alive under dark indifference]
[sometimes I'll hide just to keep me feeling lost to keep me from smiling]
one time, you said no–I believed that it was so
so I just stopped trying
a month or so was all it took to let it go
we’re past those beds we’ve lied in
we tried to fight it
we tried to deny it
we tried to hide it behind our eyes
we tired of hiding
our eyes–the light and dark versions of open skies
static and lightning
a good time to get inside, to save our sorry hides
rainfall, the middle of it all, stormfronts colliding
we tried to fight it
we tried to deny it
we tried to hide it behind our eyes
we tired of hiding
