To Be Free: Who's Next to Die/Things Will be the Same

I interrupt this blog to remind you that the original purpose of this album was to raise money.  I was tempted to simply beg for money, but I went this route instead.  If you like the music, great! But the purpose is not a song, or an album, but a pipeline.  In the next couple of weeks, you'll be able to purchase the album.  So do. At any rate, back to the spiel:

I wrote these two songs my Freshman year at Ballard.  "Who's Next to Die" was from a nightmare I had.  People were dying one by one, and everyone left behind was finding ways to cope with this scenario.  "Things Will Be the Same" sounds like a less victorious echo of "To Be Free."  My friend Jed really liked this one, so it became a favorite of mine.  When I first tried to record these two songs, I recorded them back to back. I have since always heard them that way.  In my mind, the "Things Will be the Same" answers to the dread of "Who's Next to Die."

This particular recording of "Things Will be the Same" began in NYC at Wombat studios.  Two weeks earlier I had been on tour. The tour went from NYC to Wyoming.  It was a long trek.  When I got back, my friend Dan Patterson met me in NYC and we laid down some tracks together ("Things will be the same", "Song To You" and "Smile on Me."  It was going to be the genesis of volume 1, but didn't have the tools I wanted to make the album that I heard, so I left it at the time.  When I began to rerecord some of the songs, I remember listening to "Things Will be the Same" and thinking that I would never be able to get that road-weary sound in my home studio.   That sound belongs to a time and place that has come and gone. And I can't unhear it.  That's the soul of the song.

                       Who's Next to Die?

I hear the clock slowly ticking away,

But still I have to wait another day,

We all sit back and slowly sigh,

But still we're left to wonder who's next to die.

Just when you think you've made it to the end,

You feel your mind slowly begin to bend,

Just when you think everything is fine,

Then they make you drink the devil's wine.

I had a dream the other night,

And I awoke bathed in cold moon-light,

I looked around and I saw that my dream was true,

Someday it's gonna be me, and someday it's gonna be you.

So still we wait day after day,

And all the while the clock ticks just the same,

We try to forget we try hard to deny,

But still we're left to wonder, who's next to die.

Things Will Be the Same

I can't cry,

I don't know why,

When I try,

I just sigh.

It's been this way,

For too many days,

If we don't stop now,

It will always be the same.

I don't care,

If you're not there,

If you're not here than maybe,

You're not anywhere.

I can't understand,

All your demands,

For all our dreams,

We're left with empty hands.

And I wonder, still I wonder,

Where are we going to?

I can't give,

And I can't live,

And your news falls through my mind,

Like water through a sieve,

And it still stays,

Day after day,

And we close our eyes,

And hope it goes away.

And I wonder, still I wonder,

How long can this go on?

I can't fly,

Don't know why,

When I try,

I just sigh.

Life goes on,

Duck 'til dawn,

Things will be the same,

When we're gone