Cold Stoney Floor

8 weeks ago by @lbrewington

Liner Notes

Marked as nsfw due to dark and too real issues. Trigger warning gun violence. I hesitated even posting this because of the content but the process of writing this led to healing for me, so I felt I should post it, I'll explain below.

I have had to drive pass the Covenant School everyday this week, the site of a school shooting last year. I had realized that I had suppressed the memory of this event, now and in the past. For further context my wife is a school teacher and my daughter is going into the first grade. On the grounds are three small white crosses and three larger crosses and this caused a flood of thoughts and emotions about the overwhelming grief the survivors must feel, the senseless violence of it all, and the loss of life that should not be. I started to place myself into the place of the survivors and the victims, and emotions I can not describe accurately begin to grow more and more until I reached a point of disgust in why we as a collective people are not stopping everything and demanding this problem be fixed.

Later that night as I sat down to write, I tried to distract myself with noodles or what not but eventually this topic came up and this song spilled out. The first time I sang the chorus I cried, and crying is unusual for me, but with those tears came a sense of peace.

I don't think I captured what I wanted to in the song, and I believe what I wanted to convey was both the sorrow I feel and that the issue at hand is not simple, it is our society as a whole that is poisoned and the victims and the survivors are just unnecessary collateral. However, the act of writing this song, even if it was just an attempt, seemed like the first step personally to find a place of peace and to heal.

I'll step away from this from now and perhaps revisit it at another time in hopes that the scars heal even more and give me more room to write the song I want.

Lyrics

am em d em
am em d em

a parent stands at a podium
they speak of pain and loss
the cameras zooms in real tight
a media money shot

[pc]
the politicians are stammering
it's our right to shoot em off
what the hell happened to us
and where do we go from here

[chorus a]
bm am
gun shots are ringing
em am
in the halls of the covenant school
bm em
three children are lying
am em
on the cold stoney floor

we use to have a bill of rights
suppose to set us free
now it has become a cage
of our misery

[pc]

[chorus b]
gun shots are ringing
in the halls of the covenant school
three teachers filled with holes
who will teach no more

suicidal thoughts
a will of ill intent
weapons that were purchased
down at the local mart

[pc]
[chorus a]
[instrumental]
[chorus b]
[chorus a]

cold stoney floor

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