To Be Free: Same Old Thing

Up until this point in my songwriting career, all my songs had one thing in common: they were all very serious.  When I sat down to write me a song, I tended to be serious about it.  And yet, I wasn't all that serious as a person.  "Same Old Thing" was when I decided to change that. I started with a melody, and the melody sounded fun. So the lyrics were fun.  This was my idea of a pop song satire.

If I hadn't already, I think I had just turned 15 when I wrote this.  It was later that summer that I began playing the song over and over, that I thought something like, "Hey, this is the single."  Well, as the years passed, I kind of forgot about this song.  I honestly don't know how I unearthed it, but I remember recording it and thinking it should be included, and then the more I worked on it, the more I had fun with it.  And now I agree with my 15 year old self: this should be the single.  Listen to it twice in a row and see if I'm not wright about that.

I'm sitting in the same old place
Starin' at my TV set
Lookin' at the same old face
And baby you can bet
It's the same old thing
Like it was from the start
Some say it is different
But I can't tell 'em apart.

Starin' out my window at a bird
He's been singin' the same old song
And even if it is absurd
I begin to sing along
It's the same old thing
Anyway you look
That's the same old criminal
Writing the same old book.

A man in his car has had enough
He takes his gun and begins to shoot away
And even though the penalty is too rough
I've driven that freeway every day
And it's the same old thing
Any way you go
You're trying to get somewhere
but traffic's movin' way too slow.

Starin' out into outer space
Lookin' as far as the eye can see
There appears a familiar face
It looks an awful lot like me
It's the same old thing
The universe around
The same state the same city
And the same home town

It's the same old chorus
that we sang before
And since we like it so much
We're gonna sing it some more.