This analysis was tough. This tune, despite how much I wanted to write an anti-patriarchal feminist anthem just for the benefit of our beloved curator, ended up being quite personal.

The tune is from the perspective of a concerned wife. Her husband struggles with chronic depression and indulges in the occasional all night bender as an admittedly unhealthy coping mechanism. She "lifts him up" because she loves and supports him only to find him in the throes of this same self-destructive behavior over and over again. Her "stealing of the show" refers to her being the bread winner in the family and being tolerant, indulging, and perhaps even enabling of his behavior. However, rather than creating a rift between them and calling him out on it, she puts up with his infantile bullshit hence, "losing you ain't worth the win."

Some of the lines don't make sense. Several are taken from the daily five to ten minute stream of consciousness exercise that I've been trying to get done. I've been doing "object writing" though. It's a technique I read about somewhere (can't remember where...some songwriting book I never finished...there's a few). I find it more effective, for me, than just trying to stream some consciousness onto a page. I choose something in the room I'm sitting in and set a timer on ten minutes and go nuts writing about that object. Invariably the stream deviates, often dramatically.

Musically, there's some interesting stuff going on despite the simplistic texture. The tune starts in G major, then there's some modal mixture venturing into Gm, Bb (yeah, yeah, they're relatives) and Cm, finally meandering back to a C major chorus that starts with the C chord in 1st inversion, which is what gives the chorus its tense, transitive, and looping feel. The piece, despite the Eb's and Ab's, is decidedly in G major, and the ending on the IV (C), leaves the tune both conceptually and musically open ended. I also liked the C chord as the ending because it's a half plagal cadence...it's the penultimate chord at the end of a traditional hymn's "amen." Seemed appropriate.

It's a damn chordy piece, for sure. I had to write the damn thing out to record it.

Recording: Three or four takes. Had to punch in the vocal at least once and screwed up how many times I had to play the chorus progression the last time, so I had to re-do that. Took me about an hour or so.

Sheesh. I'm as long goddamn winded as Mitch. Ain't half the writer though.