to all trains

Holy crap, this is the blues.

Within the first couple years I started writing poetry (and my songs started to not totally suck), I noticed that it's not possible to write about something until you're outside of it. You need the perspective of time and maturation to be able to create something that totally encapsulates what you've experienced. Which means, if you can write it, REALLY write it, then it's over. In the context of this here set of lyrics that is an incredib­ly good thing.

This exact sequence of events did not happen as such, because this process took place over the course of a little over two months. (Although the boots and hat, yes, are real, and look totally awesome on me, though not together.­) Roundabout April and May sort of time period. It was after the shockwaves from what I called "hornet's­­ nest time" (which is not possible to describe)­­ had finally died down. During the time this song describes, the part of myself it took all that nasty to dig up out of where I'd locked it away was more or less firmly seated, and began growing to the point where I could functionally express it through my consciously accessible personality.­­

The preceding paragraph is weird enough, but I'll go one step further and say this. Intentionally investing a system of symbols with the emotional force of your entire personality is not a strategy I recommend for anyone, ever. The development, alteration and application of symbolic systems­ is an area of work in which I've invested a great big chunk of my life, and­­ I still almost screwed it up completely. And even given how effective it all was, I'm embarrassed to think of how everything seemed to me ­­­­at the time. Of course it's very useful to keep an eye out to see whether you've UNintentionally invested a few symbols with part of the force of your personality­. Whether it's a few worrywart superstitions or a great big sprawling paranoid certainty, what's actually happened (if my own experience here is at all comparable) is that you've denied reality, denied existence, to a part of yourself. Which, as long as you live, will speak to you, will stand between you and the universe howling to be let back inside. And it feels terribly alien, inherently wrong, destructively desperate. Till you stop panicking and start listening.­­­­­­­­




the trash is talkin to me
what does it say
why you gotta love
what's gettin thrown away
crushed up cans of soda
b­rown orange peels
motorcycle tickets
cause somebody got wheels

got wheels, got wheels, got wheels

trudgin down the alley
late to punch in
a broken baby carriage
empty bottle of gin
I'm actin immature
and I'm addicted to news
I suck your every word
like it's a bottle of booze

of booze, of booze, of booze

when I let go
I get surprised
brand new ­­­­­­­­­­­black boots
in just my size
a rhinestone heart
a Stetson hat
"this is your song
listen to that"

the trash is talkin to me
speakin my fear
"you're absolutely worthless
you belong down here"
a bag of kitty litter
a toilet seat
"come cry here by the dumpster
wallow in your defeat

defeat, defeat, defeat"

­­­­­­keep on across the river
the Loop in the night
inside my skin I carry
everything that I fight
my heart is like a dry mouth
covered in tape
the truth I want to speak
it has no way to escape

escape, escape, escape

I peel it back
release the sound
I lift my eyes
up from the ground
above the gate
my love, my name
three little words read
TO ALL TRAINS

there's rails that run forever
I hope that you know
all God's children
have got someplace to go­­­
whatever words you're usin
you listen, you learn
for everything you're losin
something good will return

return, return, return