3/18/24 I ALWAYS RAN
3/18/24 i ALWAYS RAN
Its funny how we change, and struggle with things that came so easy before. I woke up today, quarter past nine, after four weeks of battling a head cold; the northeast, late-winter kind that fills chest, nose, and throat with congestion; and reflected on my old morning routine when I was writing Payphones and Ashtrays.
I was living in what I named my “divorced-dad” apartment; the kind where babies cry through cardboard walls, and voices can be heard as clearly as younger brothers rolling marbles in childhood homes. I would start each day at 4 AM, lace up my running sneakers, and blur through my five mile ritual of gliding over pavement, grassy fields, and fresh crosswalks through the receding night.
Each run ended the same; 5 AM, before the voices would wake – 60 minutes of writing in solitude until I left for my $50-a-day public school job a few towns over. Holding out for a better life, like the one I left behind, this was the only part of my day I felt alive. The rest of my day, 7 AM to 8 PM, was filled with two jobs to make ends meet, and a third on the weekends to make sure they really met.
At this time of my life, I began to obscure the meaning of my lyrics, both stylistically, but also purposefully, to not cause any more pain to people from my old life. These morning sessions, and the songs that rose from them served as a critical vehicle in exploring my family's generational trauma, as well as heal from the personal mistakes that weighed so heavy on me, like damp clothes on spring clotheslines.
People always ask us what the meanings of our songs are; and while to me, each one of these words means more to me than you would ever know, I still believe firmly in keeping them obscured. I much prefer to sing each song's message out into the world, one melody at a time, for the people that need to hear it. (Are you out there? Can you hear me?)
However, I do feel comfortable sharing themes and general meanings with you. I wrote Carousels when I was reflecting on a painful divorce, and my own personal mistakes in the decline of my first marriage. Looking back now, I can remember clearly the young man, who yearned to move time backwards:
“Up on the shelf
Young and able, a picture in a cheap frame
If I could myself
Take us backwards, another chance at daydreams
And the same young man, reluctant to find meaning in his new “divorced-dad” apartment life:
“Will it ever mean much more
Than bright headlights and faint back doors?
Will it ever mean much more”
Its been almost 10 years since I wrote this record, but I am happy to say, I am no longer the same man who wrote these words that once felt so true:
“I always ran
From bright lit places
Like carousels and good homes”
but if you are, and you can hear this message, throw on those running sneakers, grab that notebook, and write that song – it gets so, so much better on the otherside.
