January 1977, Song #2
Note: Click the play button below to play it here or “Play in Pop up” to open a separate little window
- I’d like to welcome you to where you are
Needless to say the door is always ajar
I’d like to tell you where I am today
I’ll say it before it slips away
I’m something else besides that person over there
I’m something else besides the face I wear
I am the empty hallways
Filled with empty sound
I am the lonely seeker
A case of lost, not found
But there amidst the bitterness
There is a word that sings of you
There is a word that sings of me
That word is “we”
We are the ones who gain and lose
We fight the battles, get the blues
We are the stones of all foundations
We are the lost generations
We are appointed by some knowing force
To occupy the chairs held now by ghosts
Others will follow when their time has come
It’s all the same for everyone
We vainly try to gain the source
Wasted is the kindness of the host
While our groping minds soon are numbed
By the sight of what we have become
We’re something else besides “those people over there”
We’re something else besides the labels that we bear
We are the empty churches
Filled with empty prayer
We are our mother’s sons
Choking in despair
We stand alone amidst our burned out lives
And you don’t seem to care
That we once cared.
We are the ones who gain and lose
We fight the battles, get the blues
We are the stones of all foundations
We are the lost generations
And you don’t seem to care that we once cared….
Commentary: This was interestingly enough, my mom’s favorite song! I wrote it in the midst of deep existential teen age angst on a church youth group retreat…I was entering into that healthy doubting phase that I’m still in…There’s a nicely produced version of this on my Hesitant Journey Album which at this moment exists in the form of a single vinyl “long playing record” or “LP” I’m hoping to get it transferred to digital format soon. Glancing over these lyrics…I’m glad I’ve let go of a lot of that angst stuff but it was real and honest at the time.
- Mark
© Mark Shepard 1977-2008. All rights reserved.
