Didn't spend a whole lot of time on this, but I think I like it. I intended for it to be played loud - a bigger Mag Green song, but I decided to demo it "small." I wanted to write a narrative song, and you may have heard me blather on about how I'm always drawn to song narratives that are abbreviated short stories, ones in particular in which the brevity of the song structure is used to obscure and mystify the facts of the narrative. It's fun to create little mini-thrillers, like Elvis Costello's "Watching the Detectives" or Freedy Johnston's "This Perfect World." What's really going on there? Can we know?
In this case, it's intentionally unclear what kind of mess the narrative and his foil have gotten into. What's clear is that the narrator is struggling with the pitfalls of an addiction, though we don't know for sure what he's addicted to. The girl? The chase? Substances? Crime or bad choices? Your choice.
lyrics
if there’s a way out of here
show me where to sign up
She scanned the room like she was
picking me from a lineup
I remember when it all went south
I knew I’d had enough
She’d put her head on my shoulder
on those school nights
Ninety-five and more
Til we saw the flash of blue lights
She’d push me til the thrill died down
Til she caught another buzz
She knew me when she found me
but something froze
it’s like she lost the scent
under her own nose
You could measure her affection in kilograms
the last day I gave a damn
Can anyone really say where
Addiction begins?
Some days it’s hard to tell
Your blessings from your sins
Nobody ever thinks they’re the bad guy
well, most of us, anyway
As time went by she’d say
the idea was all mine
But once the money started flowing
no one seemed to mind
And it’s funny how quick a man
can get used to almost anything
She knew me when she found me
but something froze
it’s like she lost the scent
under her own nose
You could measure her affection in kilograms
the last day I gave a damn
Stop asking how you got this way
All the little lies you tell your self each and every day
Gets a little easier all the time
what seemed like a little lapse is now a war crime
We had a pretty good scanner
But short attention spans
You could drive a truck through
All our best-laid plans
But most the time we hit our targets
No complications
And when it all blew up I lost her in the smoke
They say she got out clean
Like it was all some kind of joke
But I knew she would’ve taken it
As far as she could go
She knew me when she found me
but something froze
it’s like she lost the scent
under her own nose
You could measure her affection in kilograms
the last day I gave a damn
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