Song 45/52: “What If?”
Lyrics:
You treat me so much better than my last love
I clearly carry scars from every past love
And though you buy me roses and ask me to dance
I can’t trust this sweet romance
I’m just as scared as ever that I’ll fall
I’m unprepared to tear down this wall
And though you spoil me with affection almost every day
I can’t trust the words you say, ’cause…
Chorus:
What if it’s all a lie?
What if you leave me alone like they all do?
What if you make me cry?
What if you block me so I can’t even call you?
What if you, what if you, what if you do?
You had to turn your phone off for a work thing
I couldn’t help but think that you were flirting
And though I don’t believe every feeling I feel
I can’t trust your love is real, ’cause…
(repeat chorus)
I once read a story about some spies
Who had to infiltrate communities in disguise
They must’ve done pretty well, ’cause they got the intel
After years-long relationships built on lies
Oh, what a nasty surprise!
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
I pulled a couple tarot cards to inspire a song this week and they were the Knight of Cups (romance, charm, beauty, sentiment, expressiveness) and The Moon (illusion, fear, anxiety, intuition, uncertainty). This combination made me think about the recurrent fears I’ve had in most of my romantic relationships that my partner might only be pretending to be into me, whether because they’re just polite or because they’re planning something malicious. (This has never really turned out to be the case but probably stems from a traumatic experience I had in my teens where a mean girl “pretended” to ask me out and then revealed she’d essentially been trolling me for the lolz.)
I wrote a complete set of lyrics inspired by that card pull, and made an a cappella recording of how I heard the melody in my head while I was writing it. A couple days later, I sat down at the piano and worked out some suitable chords for the melody I’d been hearing, making some changes to it in the process.
The bridge section is referencing a real news story about undercover cops getting into relationships with activists under false pretences in order to spy on them. I talked about how this story fuelled my already-troubling delusions in this story on the Bawdy Storytelling podcast.
Song 46/52: “Sisyphus”
Lyrics:
Slow and steady wins the war
Don’t know what I’m fighting for
Moon is pink and sky is dark
Somehow, somewhere, lost the spark
Are you ever gonna hear my echoed words?
Are you ever gonna like the things you’ve heard?
Are you ever gonna love me, love me, love me, love me now?
Chorus:
I’m still so small; whose fault is this?
I swear I feel like Sisyphus
I yell and groan when I’m pushing the stone
Every day feels the same
Sisyphus – that is my name
History has much to say
On we who’d rather work than play
River man has lost his oar
Don’t know who I’m rowing for
Are you ever gonna borrow from the past?
Are you ever gonna do what I did last?
Are you ever gonna hear me, hear me, hear me, hear me now?
(repeat chorus)
Time has told me that there’s not much time
(Not much time, not much time)
It passes coldly, like I did mine
(I did fine, I did fine)
The conversation, the situation’s wrong
(It’s all wrong, it’s all wrong)
But I’ll be pushing until the hill is gone
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
Another tarot pull inspired this song: the cards were Strength (courage, determination, power, dedication) and the Eight of Pentacles (apprenticeship, repetitive tasks, skill development, hard work, “slow and steady wins the race”). This combination made me think about the myth of Sisyphus, who was cursed to roll a boulder up a hill over and over again forever.
I had been thinking about Sisyphus recently because I’d just finished reading a couple of books about Nick Drake, the British folk singer-songwriter who, like Van Gogh, was plagued by mental health issues and didn’t experience true commercial success until after he had already died tragically. Nick famously had a copy of Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus on his nightstand when he died, and many have theorized that he related to Sisyphus’s plight, seeing both his career and his mental health as a constant, grueling uphill battle.
I wrote some lyrics from Nick’s perspective, ruminating on his lack of success and calling forward to future listeners, begging them to hear him and to be influenced by him. (This did indeed happen; he’s widely considered a cult hero in the music world now and has been cited as an influence by huge artists like Norah Jones, REM, Beck, and Belle & Sebastian.)
I threw in some references to Nick’s music throughout, including mentions of a “pink moon,” a “river man,” and the phrase “time has told me.” (Would strongly recommend clicking those links and listening to his music if you’re not already a Nick Drake convert; his songs are hypnotically beautiful and virtuosically played.) The line in the chorus, “Whose fault is this?” was also taken from a quote attributed to Nick by his producer Joe Boyd, as excerpted in Amanda Petrusich’s book Pink Moon (emphasis mine):
Boyd later described their brief interaction as grisly, telling the BBC: “His hair was dirty and he was unshaved and his fingernails were dirty and he was wearing a shabby coat. … He sat down and he immediately launched into this kind of tirade about his career, about money, and basically it was accusatory. And he said, ‘You told me I’m great, but nobody knows me. Nobody buys my records. I’m still living on handouts from the publishing company. I don’t understand. What’s wrong? Whose fault is this?’ And he was angry. And I tried to explain that there are no guarantees, that you can make a great record and sometimes it just doesn’t sell.”
Song 47/52: “Bad Girl”
Lyrics:
Late night, skin-tight dress gets caught on the
Windowsill mid-climb until it pulls
Free, like me, and off into the dark
My daddy is asleep; he doesn’t know
That he could not keep me dutiful
Doesn’t know I’m drinking in the park
Chorus:
I’m not a bad girl, I swear
Just want to let down my hair
When I’m a good girl by day
My other side just wants to play
And she gets carried away
She’s got a lot she wants to say
Beer and wine and kiss me in a tree
You are with the wildest part of me
Pulling you so close against my lips
Why do I feel so rebellious?
Wait, wait, strike that, no, don’t tell me, just
Block out all those questions with your kiss
(repeat chorus)
If I seem nervous
It’s ’cause I’m workin’
To be so perfect
When I feel worthless
If I seem stressed out
It’s ’cause I left out
All the realest parts of me
To be who they want me to be
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
Third tarot-inspired song in a row! I’ve been finding tarot cards really helpful lately because there is just an infinite number of topics I could potentially write songs about and it can be paralyzing to try to contemplate them all, so instead I pull two random tarot cards, meditate on their meanings, and write about whatever they remind me of.
For this one, I pulled The Emperor (authority, structure, a father figure, power, rules and regulations) and the Seven of Swords (betrayal, deception, getting away with something). That combo immediately made me think about teenagers rebelling against their parents, so I wrote these lyrics and then ended up putting them to music several days later when various other songwriting attempts that week didn’t produce results I felt were good enough.
While the verses of this song are about experiences I never actually had – sneaking out of the house unbeknownst to my parents to drink with friends in the park – I included some of my actual thoughts and feelings about the “good girl/bad girl” duality, something I’ve been discussing a bit in therapy lately. I have the phrase “good girl” tattooed on my thighs and even previously wrote a song called “Good Girl,” so it was interesting to explore the flipside of that goodness and how both of those girls exist within me.
Song 48/52: “Gun Control”
Lyrics:
Another shooting in the news today
Before the last one’s ink is dry
It’s getting old, getting so cliché
Everybody’s asking why
Why all they’ll give us is thoughts and prayers
Why it’s seeming like nobody cares
Give your local reps a ring
So they’ll get off their ass and do something
Chorus:
The devil wins – he’s on a roll
Let’s do him in with gun control
Use your conscience, search your soul
The time has come for gun control
Gun, gun, gun control (x3)
The time has come for gun control
It’s not as if the jury’s out
Read the stats; the facts don’t lie
I promise you can go without
So fewer kids will have to die
If I seem mad, it’s ’cause I am
‘Cause no one seems to give a damn
I feel unsafe at bars and malls
So give your local reps a call
(repeat chorus)
How many more lives will we have to lose?
How many more hearts will we break or bruise?
No amendment’s worth this pain
I feel like I’m going insane
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
I was going to bed one night, checked Twitter (never a good idea before sleep), saw that yet another mass shooting had occurred – there have been over 600 in the USA this year – and felt so angry and sad and despairing that I wrote some lyrics because I didn’t know what else to do with my feelings.
The following day, I grabbed a ukulele and set those words to music. The song was really simple musically so I felt it would be bolstered by some clips of politicians talking about gun control, which I edited in. I’ve long admired the powerful (and often hilarious) songs that people like Jonathan Mann and the Gregory Brothers can create with political clips, so it was an interesting challenge to take a crack at it myself.