23. stripes

while i'm here i guess may as well post this; these are some lyrics i wrote at work the other day, when i realised that in order to stick to my new years resolution i had better spit out a song as soon as possible. i haven't tried finding a melody yet, though, so my resolution still may fail before the end of the month.

i've deliberately made it quite different from my usual writing, which tends to be fairly compact and structured with reasonably tight rhymes. this is about as close to unstructured writing as i am likely to get, the reason being that i want to start experimenting with longer, more expansive melody lines, which is one of the things i most admire in songwriters - the shins (see: "australia", "new slang") and okkervil river (see: "lost shorelines") do it wonderfully.

so it occurred to me that perhaps i need a more open lyrical structure to work with. so far i haven't taken this one out of the office; it will be interesting to see whether or not it actually works when i sit down with a guitar.

the last 'verse' is despicable. i suspect a lot of these lyrics will change. but i do like the third verse and even the second a little. they're the words i started with. maybe i shouldn't have taken them in the direction i did.

23. stripes

nothing was ever right
but grew less right
when he desired the rush of streets
and me, i wanted salted skin and fire

i saw it like a bird in my mind's eye
the misery and romance of the lines
that deviate between two lover's spines

those same haphazard stripes could be the ribbons
that might bind you,
or could be the way a mattress demarcates two separate lives

and although i missed each sorry word
each clumsy jolting touch i heard that he was doing well
and as it happened i was getting by just fine

til in a house with moats on every floor
and electronics in the door
i thought about the words he wrote
and everything that he stood for

and then i got a message on my phone
to say that he was coming home
but on his last night there he simply could not help but feel alone
and i felt alone

i couldn't get to where we said we'd meet
so i stood cold out in the street
feeling stupid in a new red coat with stockings on my feet

i bashed my phone and i made noise
to no avail, i lost my voice
and so my friends dragged me away. i had no choice, but i was glad

and later, i was sleeping on a mattress
at my friend's house
never demarcated
simply meant to be slept on by one
so i slept alone
i slept alone

i heard my phone and with my ragged throat
picked up the call and spoke
and with my last remaining shreds of speech
i told him
everything i never knew i hoped
so dearly i could say.