2022 | New Song No. 5
When I started writing this song, I didn’t really know what I was writing about. I liked the little guitar part. I also had some words I was using as place holders. Eventually I decided I really liked, so I kept them. That became the first verse.
The meaning started to evolve and hit me as something deeper than initially intended. Then I sat on it for a while - it was one of those songs where I felt like the first part was so perfectly contextualized, anything else I wrote just didn’t even come close to matching it (anyone else experience that?)
Anyway, I made myself sit down and finish it, no distractions, and I gotta say, it’s a tragic story. It’s not based on anyone I know or any real situation in particular - just a story that formed through a tapestry of various observations, emotions, and the like.
Sending love always,
J.S.
LYRICS
Cherry chapstick in the pocket of her yellow raincoat
Married money but she never got to see the gold
(at the end of the rainbow)
Storybooks didn’t depict what happens when you pick the wrong mr. Right
Now she sips her tea at night wondering what it must be like
To be a dragonfly
Predictable, a platonic, typical Tuesday awaits
And her last name-sake’s late, making it eight days straight
Back in the old days, never made straight A’s
But she had the biggest dreams I’d ever seen
She believed she could be anything, Eileen
Swore she’d never change
Until temptation came
Real love is all about compromise
But what she don’t realize
Is that it’s gotta flow both ways
She thought that living in luxury’d
Be the same as living free
Now she’s tied down, wishing she could change
When she jumped the gun
Swore he was the one
Said he was so nice
And refused advice
They didn’t talk about kids
Or what she wanted
Just got some fancy rings
Tied the knot that spring
And that brings us back to the closing theme
A raincoat won’t do you any good in a hurricane
But take note, you don’t have to make the same mistake