6. Polaroid (To All The Lives I Pass In Periphery)

9 weeks ago by @knobbyneggins815

Liner Notes

6th track for my almost-finished project for 50/90! Feels good polishing up and completing these tracks, some of which feel positively frickin' ancient. This one is more recent, according to the date in my phone it was less than a year ago that the lyric memo was created.

I recall a few songs happening in this brief stretch last year where I got my sh@t together and took a bunch of tunes from Concepts (I'm a weirdo who creates song titles/album ideas waaaay before the actual song exists) to Half-Finished Quasi-Songs. This was one I was proud of, and finally got the vocals done a few weeks ago.

I have this horrible habit (that I may have mentioned in a previous song) where I'll be caught in the middle of the night by something that just stops my heart: a thought, a random Youtube playlist (goddamn you, "Midwestern Emo Playlists With Liminal Suburban Thumbnails", you get me every time!), a photograph...this song is the ensuing existential yelp into the abyssal pit.

Everyone has a life as complex as yours, which is both beautiful and terrifying. I'm over the dread of that, as someone with too much damn empathy, but it's still a crazy thing to ponder, and we are only allowed to glimpse moments from a lifetime through a camera lens. Beyond that, it's gone.

Sometimes I am full of shame and regret for the Dark Days when I avoided people and expression and, specifically for this song, any way to remind myself that I existed during those times. No photos (maybe I'm in the background of a family photo with long, unkempt hair and a miserable expression), no videos, no songs. I got out, but it's like a void in my life that I'll never get back.

Anyways! That's what this little diddy is about! Hope that's not too friggin' depressing, but hey, this is my therapy, and I'm (most of the time) proud of it. Thanks for reading this, if you did.

Sep, 6th, 2023

Lyrics

Verse 1:
In the middle of the night,
It all gets a little blurry,
When all the pictures on the floor
Start missing you back.

Now, in a photo on the dresser,
Is the house that left me haunted,
That chained me to the bed,
And made me who I am.

At the center of a montage,
There lies familiar faces
That filter in and out
Of the lives we choose to live.

Just on the corner of Adelaide,
Is a million different stories,
With a thousand different ends,
But one way they all began.

Pre-Chorus 1:
Now how many years did it take
Until yesterday
Was put in a box and locked away
In case you ever felt it again?

And then you say:

Chorus 1:
"I'm not nostalgic for a lost time,
But when the walls start talking,
I'll be walking in the moonlight,

Out with the shadows again.
I'm lost in the middle,
Stuck in the riddle."

Then you broke down, crying
On the side of the road,
Sinking with the feeling
That you're fucking alone,

And you'll never learn
The moral of the story.
You'll never have the guts,
Or the glory.

To All The Lives I Pass In Periphery.

Verse 2:
It started such a long time ago,
A paralytic sense of sonder.
Those colors in my heart were crudely covered by a
Cynical stroke of apathy.

Now every stranger is a lifetime,
Of regrets and doubts and choices,
With voices in the crowd,
That'll never begin to notice me.

Pre-Chorus 2:
I'll count up the photographs that I never
Chose to take,
When I skipped over my twenties in a
Deep, dark ache,

And wonder why it's
Just not the same,
Anymore.

And then I'll say:

Chorus 2:
"I'm not nostalgic for the old days,
But when the walls start shaking,
I'll be praying for 'em anyway.

It's just a habit to break,
Like all of my afflictions,
All of my addictions."

All of my addictions.

Then I sat there, frozen,
At the foot of the bed,
For the photo's of the summers that I'll
One day forget,

Are the only way I'll know
I had a story.
I used to have the guts,
And the glory. (So Now)

One last march,
For the pity parade,
I promise in a minute,
I'll be fucking erased,

But for now,
I guess I'm holding your attention.
I suppose I'm at the point
Where I mention

That polaroid
Of you and I.

(To All The Lives I Pass In Periphery)

Comments