Write to Remember

Track list with lyrics:

1. Jane Gallagher - I used to know a girl who lived across the street from me. We were playing chess when she kissed me on the neck - I never kissed her back. Janie, where’d you go? Janie, where’d you go? Do you still keep your kings safe in the back row? You never were comfortable. I’m still not comfortable. I hope you get comfortable and move from the back row. I often wonder where you are, maybe in a car driving in the dark, speeding down the interstate, looking for a place where no one knows your face or your bittersweet taste.

2. The Copyright Date - Grey streaks in your blond beautiful hair. Lord knows how long they’ve been hiding in there, like threads in a sleeve coming loose at the seam. Crows come while you sleep, late in the night, resting their feet at the sides of your eyes. But you look refined - you look so wise. You gracefully age like print on a page. The value remains while the copyright date gets further away.

3. Free Time and Baby Teeth - Let’s go back, let’s go back fifteen years in the past. Let’s go back, let’s go back fifteen years in the past. [I'm] drawing superheroes in my front porch with mutant strength and the ability to teleport. When we’re bored we can go shoot baskets or catch some pop flies my dad hits with his tennis racket. Then he’ll take the neighborhood on a coffee break. We’ll fill up on Cokes and candy bars - save the coffee for a day when we have lost our free time and baby teeth. Now the Cokes and candy bars aren’t as sweet as I remember, and the free time costs too much. We get a little at the end of December, but then it’s too cold and we are too old. So, maybe it’s time to sever whatever it was we shared together.

4. The Elevator - The elevator is bringing me down. In the big shiny door, my reflection frowns. I cannot bring myself to look myself in the eye, so I watch the floor numbers like years passing by. Eight stories later I reach the first floor. Wearing yesterday’s clothes, I run out the door. I wonder if you know I’m leaving. Did you just pretend to be sleeping?

5. Send Your Love My Way - Send your love my way. High-speed dub it onto a mix-tape, and let the songs explain. Note by note, your feelings take shape in my eardrums. And when the beat comes in I am a child again, born anew in a song that’s sung in tongues I never knew I knew. And I don’t catch all the words, but I believe they’re true. I believe they’re true. Your melody’s compelling me to move. You lyrics lift my spirit; pale my blues. The world around me seems to be improved. Your melody’s compelling me to move.

6. A Few More Milligrams - Windows were like movie screens to me back in Small Town Elementary. And all throughout my teens plastic chairs were prisons that we were forced to live in, and vacations felt a little like probation. Sometimes they’d ask me to open up my notebook, but the only notes that I took were my doodles, my little drawings. I made them while I was yawning in the back row, waiting for the clock to say it’s time to go home. There’s something in my veins, I can’t explain. It has no name. It’s spreading to my brain, I’m not the same - I’m not the same. My folks said “Son, it’s time that something’s done. All your teachers told us they’ve noticed your total lack of focus.” So I swallowed a few yellow milligrams every morning, a few more milligrams at noon, a few more milligrams and pretty soon I became a measuring cup. Just pour it all in and fill me back up until I learn to sit still.

7. Meet in the Middle - I wait for the train to pass and peek through the gaps between boxcars that come in between us like jail cell bars. And I wonder how long this will take, how long we’ll wait. I try to shout something welcoming, but the roar of the train isn’t helping me be heard. It swallows my words. So I simply wave my hands, and wonder if this train is ever gonna end at all. My side of the train has doors. If your side of the train has doors, we should hop on board and meet in the middle – meet in the middle. And I wonder how long this will take, how long we’ll wait. And I wonder how long it will take until we walk away.

8. Connected - As the world keeps getting bigger, I can feel it getting smaller. [I'm] sending signals to the towers like a tin-can on a string. I’ve got an intimate relationship I can access with a double-click, and I can log-off anytime I want to call it quits. I saw you in the shopping mall, barely realized it was you at all, without a username scrolling across my computer screen. I printed out our conversations - studied the abbreviations, inserted proper punctuation so it would make some sense. I found out you’ve been feeling lonely. Well, Baby, you are on not the only one. You’re right under my fingertips, but I don’t think I’ll ever get to touch you.

9. Modeling Clay - All your memories are memorizations with adaptations added in over the years. You put them in a photo album, so you can tell them all exactly how it felt - the grandkids, the neighbors, the mailman, total strangers - but do you know how it felt? Or does it grow? Does it swell? And now it’s just a lie that you tell. You always tell it so well, you always tell it so well. Every journal that you’ve ever written will get hidden in a closet someday. When you find them, they will read like fiction with detailed descriptions of a life lived long ago. But the details are like modeling clay; you can shape them in ways that will best entertain.

10. Livin’ in the Desert - I like it when you wear your hair that way. Put your pretty little ears on display - pierced with no piercings, but nothing is missing. I like it when you giggle in your sleep, so tightly twisted up in blankets and sheets. I love your frigid fingers, I love your frigid feet. We’re livin’ in the desert, but you still freeze. You always listen to my every word like it is the last one to be heard - no matter how mundane, no matter how absurd.

11. The Bathtub Drain - When I was younger, I feared I’d be swallowed by the bathtub drain. Now I’m older and I steer clear of gutters every time it rains. It’s not the water that frightens me; it’s where the water goes - a place that I can’t see. La da da da da. Please, please, please be sure to check on me. I need you right next to me now. I know it’s silly, but I’m scared to death I’m gonna sink.

12. The Sweet Disguise - Scribble down these feelings like the fool I know I am. The pages soak them in like an eager audience, but it reads like the diary of a melodramatic teen and it does me no damn good. So repeat, repeat, please repeat after me: I’m never gonna sing another sad song. I’ve been pissing and moaning for too long. Bore myself to death with these recycled themes and issues. Every song I sing is just a sequel to the last. The script may change, but the storyboard’s the same. So I’m begging you to boo me off this stage. The sweet disguise of melody transforms complaint into artistry, but in the end I’m only feeling sorry for myself.

13. Bella - [instrumental]

Track list w/ lyrics:
1. Nerve - So many people pulling me and I'm spread so thin. So many people playing games that I cannot win, but I'll always try to give my all. I wish they'd do the same, and I'll always catch you when you fall, though it brings me pain. If I got the nerve I'd give them what they deserve, if only I was not afraid; afraid to look you in the eye, afraid to hear myself cry, afraid to be the bad guy. So many people using me; [I'm] too nice, I guess. So many people I can't please. Look at this mess. Everyone is pulling me apart. I should speak my mind, but where to start? They'll keep on pulling me, make no mistake. They'll keep on pulling me 'til my arms break.

2. Retirement Home - I feel so old, but I'm still young. Have I misplaced my sense of fun? I told myself so much that I would not lose touch. But I can feel it slip away, slipping further everyday. [I] don't want to waist my life and become a stereotype. I don't want to take the shape of something that I hate. I don't want to notice change by the time it's far too late. I look at you in your old age, somewhere near that final page, living off of pills and working 'til it kills. And I can see it in your eyes; you just came to realize your life is nothing like you wanted it to be. I don't want to take this shape. I don't want to make this change.

3. Blanks and Spaces - I'm right here. I'm nowhere near. I'm not afraid. I'm full of fear. I haven't slept in sixteen years. I'll never stop. I want to quit. I'm brilliant. I'm an idiot. I am just like you, but opposite. And sometimes what I say isn't what I mean, so just fill in the blanks and spaces in between. Often what you heard wasn't meant, wasting all my breath until my energy is spent.

4. Seeing Through - If I saw myself through your eyes I wonder what I'd see. If it were up to you to decide I wonder who I'd be. Sometimes I wish I could be in your mind. You make me out to be so cold and unkind. But what have I done? What can I do? All my words seem to change when they're spoken to you. If I saw through different eyes would I be deceived? Would it all look exactly the same? How am I perceived by you? I want a new point of view. But what do you see? Do you see right through? Why do I seem to change from the view point of you? So stop seeing through me.

5. Whisper Word into My Ear - Give me something new, a color that's not blue. Give me something I can always hold onto. Give me something quick, 'cause I could use a fix, a fix to lift me up, a fix of happiness. Whisper words into my ear, but only the words that I want to hear. Promise me everything will be OK. Give me something nice, a thing that will suffice, something that will work more than once or twice. Give me a new toy, one I won't destroy. Give me something more than temporary joy.

6. Talking to Ourselves - Sometimes I talk nonstop and never say a thing. Sometimes you hear me without ever really listening. Sometimes I ramble on and spill my guts to you. Sometimes you nod your head and smile. Sometimes I do that, too. Sometimes I wish I had someone to hear my fears. Sometimes I wish someone would open up their ears. We're only talking to ourselves.

7. Blind - I could never tell what's in your head when I lie here awake in bed. I could never tell what's on your mind. You always helped me stay so blind. Now you're not here, and I know why. I have a clue: you never tried. And I should have seen your careless stare. When you looked away, I was never there. I don't understand why this has to be so hard for me to choose and to lose. When I'm far away nothing seems to be meaningful or matter to me. To you this may be truer than true. You only know when it happens to you. I don't understand why this has to be so hard for me to change and to age. I could never tell what's in your head. Sometimes I wonder if you want me dead. I could never tell what's on your mind. You always helped me stay so blind. I don't understand why this has to be so hard for me to grow and to live.

8. So Quiet - It is so quiet. Awkward silences I've come to dread. Nothing gets resolved when nothing is said. Tell me if there's something I should know. I am of no help at all when you are always so quiet. Maybe if I learned to read your mind I could understand you half the time. Communication is the biggest key. Open up and let it out so we don't have to be so quiet. I'd rather yell than never say a thing. Speak your mind, what's the worse that it could bring? Tell me if there's something I should know. There's no benefit for always trying to keep it so quiet.

9. Red Numbers - Somewhere deep inside my mind I got lost and could not find which way in and which way out, how to whisper, how to shout. [I] analyze myself to see attempted self discovery wasn't what I'd hope it would be, only further confusing me. Somewhere in the clouds of sleep I got lost and could not keep all my thought provoking dreams, all the answers as it seems. In the darkness of my room numbers glowing red consume all my time and all my sleep, ever losing count of sheep.

10. My Reflection - I'm sitting in a room with doors surrounding me and I have every key. Nearby on the wall I see a ticking clock. It's counting 'til I walk. Walk through a door and choose a direction. I stare down my doubts and my own reflection. When I choose a door, will I be satisfied? Will I be locked inside? I know it could be worse. At least I have a choice and I still have a voice. My voice will raise and hush the ghosts that haunt. My voice will raise and tell me what I want. What do I want? I peek into a small keyhole. I see myself when I am old. I'm looking back at all I've done and looking at my reflection.

11. April - Raindrops falling on rooftops accent silence I think is killing me. Shadows grow and cover me, blurring everything I see, turning this sky black and gray. I'm watching my hope fade a way. My hands are so cold and wet now from this dreary day. I can't seem to get away from all this darkness and decay. Rain drenching my eyes and my face, eroding me, leaving no trace.

12. Later - In one million years, where will I be, stuck in a corner of eternity? In my next life, assuming I'll have one, will I know your name or where you came from? In the next world, will I be aware if you are close or even there? When I wake up in a brand new bed, will I have your memory saved inside my head? See you later, sweetheart. Soon we'll have to depart. See you later, sweetheart. Soon we'll have a new start. Remember my name, remember my face, remember my voice. Don't let time erase all of your hope, your memories. Don't erase the thought of you and me.

13. Sad Ending - I cannot see you in front of me, because the energy I face causes me to close my eyes and visualize your embrace. Your face is slipping by. I've imagined it a hundred times; singing rhymes that make me feel like you were here holding my hand, but this song won't make that real. Time I don't see you goes by. There are plenty of fish in the sea. I don't want to dive in yet. My feelings for you hold me back, so I'm stuck in a loveless debt. Other fish just swim on by.

Track list with lyrics:

1. Welcome - Performers setting up here prepare for doors to open, and the crowd will gather near for all to take part in the roles they play on and off stage. Welcome to this big show tonight. Please clear the stage and turn out the light. An act is set in motion before music is even played, and two get the notion that connections have been made. The begin to talk before the moment is lost. Welcome to this big show today. It's all set up so come what may. He tells her, then she tells him little bits of history, and slowly now the pages in this play are laid out to be seen. Welcome to this big show tonight. Please take the stage and turn on the light.

2. Blank - His friend has passed on and is passing along the chance to learn and play along with the band. His choice has been made: to take advantage of this opportunity for expressing all his... The old drummer could not quite get along with his bandmate, the boyfriend of his crush forbidden. He gave them an ultimatum and they said no, so he had to go. His choice has been made to give up on all this and pursue other ways to make him feel all his... Now he can see why one would give it a try, but there are no thoughts yet as to whether he'll get lured in like some poor lonely bum, begging for a chance at more. The choice isn't maide whether or not he says it is, because he can't control what makes him feel all his...

3. Applause or Silence - The girl has come over to take a listen to the music that they've written. Here excitement is a sign they should consider going out to play. Maybe it's not such a bad though to test the waters whether or not playing in front of an audience will result in applause or silence. They know someone who knows a guy who might be able to help them to fill in a spot opening for a small band coming through on tour. Alright, it's not such a bad time to see if whether or not they find that playing in front of an audience will result in applause or silence. The day has come closer for their first show and they've invited everyone that they know, but still they're nervous and excited to see if their friends will be delighted. It's time they have to take the stage now for their first real trial to see how playing in front of an audience will result in applause or silence.

4. Building On - Building on early successes, the bonds they have developed are stronger than any guesses. The question is, will they be kept? Building on their mutual interest, this friendship is becoming more likely that it will soon test loyalties deeply running. It sure doesn't show, but they've got to know where the wind blows is not where hope grows. Taking from what they've done so far, it makes sense to continue building on the work that they are encouraged to see through. It's got to show and they've got to know where their heart goes is where their love grows.