Oblivion

Lyrics

They say that times have changed
And love is all the rage
So how come all I see
When I turn on my TV
Is people just like me?
They say that nothing’s true
Is that a point of view:
That nothing’s what it seems?
Well I’ll stick to my dreams
And things I can believe

Don’t mind me – ‘Cos I’ve had a bit to drink
And when I’ve had a bit to drink I offer opinions
There’s too much in my head and I need to go to bed
When I wake up I’ll be dead
And I will welcome oblivion
On days like these when I’m barely even here
And the end seems so near
I would welcome oblivion…

Nothing’s meant to last
The future of the past
Has finally arrived
And it’s not as advertised
What a time to be alive
And time keeps rolling on
We’re here and then we’re gone
Bust to boom, and boom to bust
All our hopes and dreams and lusts
Returned back to the dust

Notes…

I have often jokingly described myself as a sad man trapped in a happy man’s personality, but like many such jokes it’s uncomfortably close to the truth. Partly it’s rooted in my own psychological makeup, but worsened by the inescapable background noise of the news and social media. I don’t often express any of this, because why would you – and this underlying personal malaise rarely creeps into my music. As I think I’ve mentioned before, music is an escape for me – so the appeal of writing endless rhyming couplets about my personal misery would seem to defeat the point. So this song is pretty unusual for me in that it directly talks about me. That being said, it’s clearly overstated a little for comic relief – I don’t think I would actually welcome oblivion – but there’s enough of a personal sting in it that I actually feel a bit uncomfortable reading the words back to myself.

Musically, the main part of this tune is actually years old – as is the opening couplet. At the time I wrote it I was working with a band, one of whom was not fond of songs with too many chords on principle, and hated the chorus of this in particular. As such, it never saw the light of day and I’d quite forgotten about it until recently, when I happened across a murky recording I made on my phone while larking about a few years ago.

With fresh inspiration, I found that the construction came fairly easily in terms of structure, but the sound was another kettle of onions. I’m not a keyboardist or arranger, so I’ve spent the best part of a fortnight on getting the sound into the sort of ballpark I was aiming for.

Almost certainly I’m going to have a better guitarist redo the solo. I’m not comfortable at all playing lead parts; although I like to arrange them in my head, I am fundamentally shit at playing, so the solo you hear is the best of about 18 takes – 17 of which didn’t even reach the end.

If you think you hear a Pink Floyd influence at play, award yourself five marks and proceed to page 2 of your workbook. Floyd are a band I’ve loved since my teens but their influence on my music is generally fairly minimal. While I adore them, I am not able to write in the freewheeling, arrhythmical style of the Syd years (and truthfully very few people can). Nor do I have much a feel for writing stuff in the style of their icy 70s stadium pomp…. but this is definitely the closest I’ve come. I’ve droned on and on in these pages about my fondness for stylistic diversity, so this is another little toe in those waters.

And no; I can’t tell you what the outro is all about. It’s just some stuff.