Tad's Acoustic Series Part Five - Changing Once a Day

This is a fun one and well represents a touch of maturity in my song-writing (I just threw up in my mouth typing that out).  Before this song I was always trying to emulate the bands that got me into music, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Live, Alice in Chains, etc.  Granted, listen to the stuff that I wrote during that period and I wasn't even close to anything that resembled those bands...but that's what I was trying to be in my head.  Once this song came around...with this vibe and these weird chords that I felt I invented at that time (because I have an enormous head...figuratively and literally) it was a whole new world (author's note:  Came across a UK copy of Aladdin on eBay recently...and my 3 & 4 year old have watched it in the neighborhood of 25 times already...so that may shape some of my writing in the near future).  But without further ado:

Some say they're the same as any other day

But they're not the same, why is that?

It's not that hard to be the same as you were just one day ago

Maybe there's a disease spreading change that no one's ever heard of before...

A different thought a different feeling is a new you coming out

Is there anything you can do to stop it?  I don't see why not

A new yourself a new beginning or just another f***** up you

Why not just hang on to what you're feeling and try and see something through...

With this changing once a day how will you ever really find out who you are?

Will this pattern you've succumbed to ever stop?

How will you ever really know you?

Personalities come and go like the travelers at the bus stop

These days reality is very shaky but some things never change

The hubris of these lyrics is awesome!  Coming off a break up...judging an 18-19 year old girl for having the audacity to change her mind about the way she felt about me...or not even that...just wanting to get out of high school and see what life had to offer outside of her high school boyfriend.  I spent a significant amount of time scouring the deepest recesses of my brain to come up with basically, "Hey!  What's the deal??".  Brilliant stuff!  I guess these lyrics are a shining example of the extreme self-centeredness of youth combined with having yet come to terms with true human nature.  Ah to be young and dumb(er) once again!

Getting away from all that...I guess it just begs the question...do we change...or are we just we?  And is we nothing but a conglomeration of static and erratic behavior where change takes place on a daily basis, minute by minute even...but that "change" is nothing but the sum of what we actually are?  Changing once a day?  Maybe I was aiming way way too low.  Everything we experience from the moment we leave the bed to the moment we return...does it change us in any way?  Does it take a "life-changer" to bring about true change or can picking a different route to work or a new flavor of coffee creamer cause a ripple effect that can honestly alter the course of who we are?  

Or do we actively seek to constantly "change" in order to find out who we really are?  Maybe I had it ass-backwards!  Maybe life is nothing more than a series of auditions and we're trying to secure the role of us?!  By the way...if that's true and I'm auditioning to be me...although I would truly like the part, I would expect the Big Casting Director in the Sky to go with a much younger, slimmer candidate...you'll definitely get more asses in the seats that way.

But enough about me.

As I feel with every one of these...certain there's not much sense to be made...but grateful for any eyeballs trying to find some.

Love y'all.

Tad

Tad's Acoustic Series Part Four - Unseen Love

This one we can go ahead and have a little fun with as to what it actually means...or who it's actually about...or who in the hell did I think I was busting out "vigilance", "sprang out of consciousness", "flower of my love" and "enraptured" in the same verse at the age of...oh...we'll call it 20.  I'm going to say I was coming off of my first long-term relationship...or I guess you could just call it my first relationship...period (no guessing...that's what it was...not sure why I said "I guess" when there's no guessing needed...but I'm leaving it in).  So...if I have to try to figure out where I was going with this I'd have to say...oh, well first, please enjoy, and don't judge too harshly:

Sing softly echoing

I'll bring you anything

Unspoken shuttering

I'll be your everything

You're everything I've wanted you're wholly beautiful

You're everything I need of this I am for sure

You're everything I've wanted you're wholly beautiful

You're everything I need

I would leave this song for another day to hear your voice sing on responding

Wrapped inside your heart just to make you say nothing could destroy my longing

I misplaced my plans take a different way surround yourself I'll be your haunting

Three words once said never quite the same...vision cleared a new understanding

Not a look nor move just vigilance I am convinced

Utter loss of self in your presence you're everything I ever wanted

Open heart sprang out of consciousness the flower of my love unbroken

Capture me enraptured by loveliness my love for you goes on undaunted

As I was saying...my best guess would be that this song was about her...or the idea of her...mixed in with the idea of the next her and how I felt she needed to be honored, respected, and pedestalized (40 Year Old Virgin reference intended).  Also, knowing myself as I do the thought of a next she was nothing more than a pipe-dream anyway as I've apparently been gifted with the self esteem of a prom-night wallflower.

Not sure why that is actually...but I'm guessing it has something to do with only child syndrome and the feeling (while maybe only just that) that your existence is so important to two people that they have no choice but to instill in you the fact that you're special...and you have no choice (being a newer addition to the planet) but to believe what they believe about you.  Once you get out there in the real world and realize that we're all nothing but different shaped/sized/colored versions of the same thing...I think it can take any self-esteem you have packed into your vault and blow it up like unstable dynamite and Doc Arzt of LOST fame (my references are intolerable).

All this to say...the dude who wrote these lyrics makes me nostalgic for the times when his optimism for the future felt so pure...but also annoyed at his naiveté (but not nearly as annoyed as I am w/ myself for my continued use of parenthesis and flowery words such as naiveté) that such feelings can be secured for any lengthy period of time.  These honeymoon phase feelings are merely possible for fleeting moments in our lives.  But, perhaps the best way to live is jumping from fleeting moment to fleeting moment, steeling your heart against the bitterness that life can imbue in you with it's disappointments and struggles and keeping your course steady towards the next fleeting moment.  Maybe with a change in perspective each day can be its own fleeting moment and we can live in utter, silly happiness for the rest of our days...

Is it that simple that the key to a fulfilled and happy life may just lie in the angle from which you choose to observe it?

I don't know much...but I love you for reading this.

Tad

Tad's Acoustic Series Part Three - Untitled

If there's one thing that drives me crazy it's the pretentiousness of an "artist" to not even have the fortitude to name their art.  May I present to you an extremely old song, boldly called, "Untitled"!

This was written probably around 2000 as an unlisted track for an album we were actually making (by we I mean my first band Some Friends of Mine...SFOM to the cool kids).  We had some pretty crazy gigs for being so young...one youth group, two elementary school chapels, and 2 or 3 self promoted gigs at our local church.  We were about as hard core as hard core could be.

Anyways...I wrote this as a solo piece to sort of tag on to the end of the album (recorded in a beat up old garage in Torrance, CA by a really awesome dude, Ken Roberts).  We were a "christian" band...a band full of church-going christians...and as the guy writing the lyrics, pretty much everything had to have a christianity laced tie-in or else I wouldn't go with it.  I guess it was sort of at the beginning (if there ever really was one) of the can a band full of christians just be a band or are they required to be a "christian" band...and is that even a thing...I don't know.  Certainly not the most honest of song-writing approaches...and perhaps a bit contrived...but not in this song, there was definitely sincerity in this one.  Please enjoy:

Goodnight, goodbye my angel

May the gift of silence follow your drifting eyes

May the weight of the world pass over your heart without a fear

And the memories of before lose themselves in the hope of new life

When I look at you I see a light so true

But what you do is not the real you

Goodnight, goodbye my darlin'

Lives can change as the world spins away

Don't believe in anything you hear banged in your head

Don't believe in anything, the world's mistake

As soft as the dawn bringing brand new day

A touch on the heart can bring you all the way

It can bring you all the way

And I'd do anything just to hear your say you're through with looking elsewhere for something

And I'd give everything if you'd find your way

An unbelievable chance for a love free of pain it's not out there in the shadows of life's complaints

But I'm still sitting back waiting for today

Because today is no better time for everything you want

Pretty cut and dry...the concerned narrator pleading with his protagonist to wake up and believe in the treasures that lie beyond what we can see.  Turn off the noise of the world and succumb to the "truth".  I can't say this song was about anyone in particular, just a likely subject-matter for the songs written at that time of my life...but now, 14+ years and many lifetimes later...maybe the protagonist is me?

Thanks for your time as always...hope you enjoyed.  Love y'all.
Tad