From the recording The Light Still Shines On The Main (WAV file)
Why did I quit music in 2019? Partly because I felt like a failure, partly because I could not deal with the increasing waves of repeated rejection, partly because there was no money coming in, partly because I ran out of things to say. But the music business doesn’t owe me anything and it has taken me years to understand and accept that hard truth. This song is not directed at any one person, except maybe myself and the state of music consumption in general. When I told my mother that I was going to make another album her only comment was “Try to write some upbeat songs”. I’m not quite sure if this is what she had in mind.
Lyrics
Such a long time since you’ve seen me
How you been? How are you, really?
We should just catch up in the meantime
I can take you down to the waterline
Where we could founder in old feelings
Or we could let it go
But the word is out how you let me drown
Yeah, everybody knows by now
If seeing is believing
Then what’s the use in revealing
How I told you my big secret
God knows that I thought you would keep it
Everyone has so many questions
But I can’t be sure
How much to share, how much is gone
If everybody knows by now
But even in the darkest hour
There’s still a sense of power
There’s still a chance to write this book
And everybody loves the hero
But I’m just stuck on zero with no hook
People who laugh when they don’t get the punchline
Same folks say they see when they’re half-blind
In the shadows and in the meanness
There lives the absence of genius
But the windows have all been boarded up
Like there’s no one home
And then the music stops
But the beat goes on
And everybody knows by now
Everybody knows by now
Everybody knows by now