December 04, 2003 - 00:00

Dear Diary,

First up, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BONEZ! John turns thirty!

We�re gearing up for our last show of the year. Next Saturday we�re back at The Baggot Inn and I couldn�t be more excited about this show because we are playing some of the new stuff we�ve been working so hard on. Last night we got to play some of the songs that we�ve been keeping on a shelf since the beginning of our little writing hiatus. I guess it�s always good to put things away for a little while because when it was time to come back to the songs that were already familiar to us the four of us actually found ourselves having a ball playing them. Up until then songs like �Adopt A Highway,� and �Dead On My Feet� were kind of a drag to play because we�ve been playing them for a couple of years now so last night�s rehearsal was an unexpected pleasure.

�It�s Tricky To Rock A Rhyme That�s Right On Time. It�s Tricky.�

-Run DMC

I finished the lyrics to a new song the boys and I have been working on called, �Goodbye Like A Gun.� I don�t remember which medication we used for the working title we had but the song now has a real name. We are performing it at the next show. As always I�ll post the lyrics below but I have to tell you that writing this song was one of the hardest labors I have experienced with anything I�ve ever written so far. Whenever the music is finished and arranged before I have an idea where the lyrics are going my job becomes 200% harder. When we finished the music I adored what we had so I knew that I couldn�t just bash one out in any kind of familiar formula. In other words, I couldn�t get through this on autopilot or just fill in the blanks. The ending of the song takes on an entirely different feel than the beginning so there is a mood swing that I would have to pull off lyrically that your everyday verse chorus verse wouldn�t quite reach either. Also, there is no chorus. The song kind of operates like the Bolero, it builds into a larger coda so the bridges have to act as expeditions. Are you still with me?

For about a month I obsessed over this song. Honestly, my wastebaskets have seen more action over this one song than all of the others combined but I was determined not to sell this one short. I�ve sold some of our stuff short before and nine times out of ten those are the songs that end up shelved as incomplete ideas. I am not kidding you when I tell you that this song kept me up at night. I am also not kidding you when I tell you that this song has disrupted the peace in my house on more than one occasion. It seems like every couple of days I was telling John that I had finished the words but then I would read them the night before rehearsal and end up getting angry and throwing them out. I knew I wanted to convey a particular feeling in the melody but I had no idea how to go about it with the limited space I was given. It all came to a head last week when I got so desperate that I tried to improvise ideas during rehearsal and ended up singing about a day of the week that sneaks into your house and steals all the clocks. I have to admit that idea still appeals to me but we had just finished a song called, Clockface only a couple of weeks before and besides I was determined to convey the specific feeling I had when I first heard the scratch tapes of the music so I was prepared to do whatever it took even if I had to learn to sing in Russian. So here I was between a rock and a hard place. This song was slowly becoming my enemy, which only added to the frustration. Finally, at work yesterday, when I was supposed to be finishing up a stack of paperwork, I sat at my desk and came up with a plan. I ended up writing all of my previous ideas on a piece of paper before taking a good hard look at them. I then wrote a couple of really personal things on the other side of the page as if I were writing a secret note to myself. I then folded the paper in half so the two sides met in the middle. The end result was a beautifully fractured mess that only required a once over treatment to create the gorgeous thing that I am so very proud of. I must admit it wasn�t the most sincere way to write a song but what I ended up with was this fantastic collage that I couldn�t have pulled off if I had tried to preconceive it outright. I think what I love the most about it that it reads like bad poetry but in the context of the music the words fit perfectly and end up owning the whole song. I will probably never use this method to write another song again and I know full well how pretentious this entry reads but I have to tell you that the experience of writing this song was an adventure that I needed to document. This song was nothing short of a mini-Moby Dick.

Wednesday the awkward middle sibling,

The Weather wallpaper,

Your Smile the grandest roller coaster,

Your Goodbye like a gun,

Someday a smoky game of poker,

Daydreams train stations,

Hold Hands the tollbooth clerk is bleeding,

Your Goodbye like a gun,

I saw tomorrow get robbed,

I watched them reach for the sky,

Secretly pray to myself,

That you�ll draw blanks or misfire,

But these wishes run like horses,

And I am begging to ride�

Desire the river where I�m drowning,

Pillow Cases wise elders,

Your body saddles up while holding,

Your Goodbye like a gun,

I saw tomorrow get robbed,

I watched them reach for the sky,

Secretly pray to myself,

That you�ll draw blanks or misfire,

But these wishes run like horses,

And I am still begging to ride�

To ride�

That sunset is filthy,

From the assembly line,

Let�s bang one out,

From the mold we�re casting then,

Can�t keep a secret,

To save my life,

So devour what�s ours,

And leave them with nothing left,

I know the ending,

I never read the book,

Still my hands are bound,

By an awful plot device,

I�m caught in traction,

Honey I'd never run,

Your goodbye like a gun,

Is pointing right in my face.

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