May 16, 1998

Well folks, sorry I haven't written in so long. I actually have entries for almost every day but they just don't seem exciting enough for me to put on the site. Does anyone really want to know about dentist appointments and talking to landscapers all day?

Tracking the progress of the box set, I am today working on a new song that has yet to be titled. It's this melodic 11/8 thing. I want to keep it very organic with all real instruments and no samples, but it calls for a very good horn section so... we'll see.

Anyway, the other day I wrote this song and started to record it. It started out as this incredibly angelic type harmonized echo processing on the guitar. I wrote a riff around it that sounded melancholy yet deeply moving. A friend of mine has been going through some heavy changes in his life lately and at one point he reached a painfully low place but rebounded to a euphoric state. It reminded me of some of the things that we feel when our soul goes through growing pains. Seeing what he was going through and thinking back at some trying times in my life, I wanted to write some lyrics (oh how unlike me right?). It was difficult to start so I just went into some automatic writing and then decided to extract a more refined lyric out of that. Here's the writing in all it's naked honesty.


The world stopped and I realized I had changed. The change came on fast and fierce. Many years of seeing the world one way, then in an instant it is vastly different. I'm worlds away from where I used to be and I realize that the very structure that I built my house on is frivolous and decayed. My walls tumble down around me to reveal a new landscape. A scene of strange almost alien beauty. The subtlety of thoughts and realizations that seemed so trivial in the past are now monumental in their magnificence, yet still profoundly elusive. And then there's you, always within me. The one who has been there forever and who I have failed miserably so many times in the past. Every day I experience more and more the value you are to my being and how even when I neglect you, you’re always there ready to guide me when I am strong enough to listen. I realize how selfish and hurtful I have been and how I have taken you for granted. I am comforted when I allow myself to dwell on my desire to be closer to you. The harder I focus on that, the more I hear you in the silence. My heart races to the extreme poles of euphoria and joy to the darkness of helplessness and despair. And when the Lords of Karma rain fortune in my world, there are those brief moments of pure love. Uncompromising in it's vastness, so fine that it’s brutal in its wake, for after those brief moments of purity I see myself as the prisoner I really am. These chains that bind me in this hopeless prison cell are actually forged by you and made out of pure love for when I'm strong enough to break them with a stainless heart, I will be worthy of your oneness. But for now I am deaf dumb and blind to even the surface of your truth. You have concealed your excellence well from the unworthy. Keeping the purity of the union far from groping and filthy hands. To approach you is supreme but to be with you is indescribable with this pen or tongue. And why should it be easy? The tests are so rigorous that they continue even after the body dies, but I am so melted into the ways of the world that I forget the goal and grovel in the mud unaware of the very filth that I gather. But I also know that I am already there. Already with you even though I don't perceive it at this time.We all are. But being stuck in the illusion of time and its linear penitentiary is what we perceive. Without your sweet whispers I would wither and die. An interesting design you prescribed.

I hear all the time that people feel alone. That the way they hurt is unique to them. Maybe it is. We try to express these feelings through the way we act, what we say, what we do. I know how I feel inside but with all the flailing and artistic meandering I could possibly display, could I ever really bring someone else to feel exactly the way I do? Words are useless in conjuring these true feelings, especially if we believe that no one has ever pained as much as we have.

Are we really alone? God only knows.
The Silent Within
Endless time is arriving
in this lost and found
what is now was always
but never seemed to be

In the breath of a heartbeat
the walls tumble down
an illusive light and sound enrapture me

But I remain in my body
words fail to describe
what we feel when we die inside

God only knows
what we’re feeling
when the lights grow dim
is there really a voice inside
in the silent within

Torn apart by a twister
of greed, lust and pride
when I bleed it’s a
need to be one with you

Why is anger so hungry
and love so blind
why does it hurt when we cry
well God only knows

What we’re dreaming
in our ultimate sin
do we really conceal a thing
in the silent within

And I’m dreaming today
God only knows and he ain’t talkin’
in the sound and the light and the life

There’s no end to the bottom
when we start to fall
there’s no top to the high
when we want to climb

This heart is a prison
bound by chains of gold
wherein lies the keys
God only knows

How we’re falling
while reaching for him
in this vacuum of time and space
in the silent within

God only knows
the silent within

It’s a drop from the ocean
it’s a star from the sky
it’s a grain of sand from the earth
a tear from an eye

When will the light come before us
and shine in our life
in the silent within
God only knows