From the recording The Light Still Shines On The Main (WAV file)
This was the final song I wrote for the album, replacing one that we started to record but felt wasn’t really working. It’s the only song on the album that is more fantasy than reality. I love Aimee Mann’s songwriting and half her songs seem to be about the breakdown of her relationship, yet she has actually remained (happily?) married for more than 25 years. So, while this song is about the emotional fallout as a long-term relationship comes apart it is not about MY relationship falling apart. I’m just mostly inventing. I had to make that clear to Brittany when I first played her the song.
Lyrics
All this time you felt captive
And so you decided that you would just move on
Now my heart is radioactive
As forces divide into weak and into strong
And you’re so strong
CHORUS:
I can’t convince you
I can’t convince you
I can’t convince you in a song
Butterflies return to sender
A horse for a Trojan, the sword in the stone
Still, I think I should not surrender
For I’m not the kind who would abdicate his throne
Not this throne
Because you’ve been hiding out alone
In none of the places that we have known
And you left me standing on the sidelines
Where love can never grow
Though you never know
Thoughts and rhymes move through the system
But you know that I know we both can’t linger long
And there’s no point in playing victim
While there’s still a chance that one of us is wrong
But who was wrong?