Posts Tagged ‘lonely’
Andrew
September 1977, Song # 8
Glancing around the overflowing room,
Andrew shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans
Clenches his fist around some loose change jingling
He’s sure that he’s a failure at small talk and mingling
So he leans against a helpful wall feeling out of tune
But deep inside he knows he’s different than he seems
And he’s always looking for a girl to know him
Talking to himself, the best and only pal he has
All about how she will be a friend, not a lover
But Andrew wants to love her
He really needs to love her.
But time does come for him to go home
He knows he’s safe inside the headphones
He worships with the Grateful Dead
Cause they know what goes on inside his head
Andrew is a sensitive boy
He needs his music more than any other toy
And he mumbles when the teacher calls
Cause he’s spacing out the walls
Into his drifting chin-on-hand wilderness of kinds
And the master of the rule
Takes Andrew for a fool
But Andrew doesn’t really mind at all
He don’t care, he don’t care, never did
He don’t care now
He don’t care, he don’t care, never will
He don’t care how
Yet the time does come for him to go home
He knows he’s safe inside the headphones
And he worships the Grateful Dead
Cause they really know what goes on in his head
Andrew is a plastic boy
He needs his records more than any other toy
Just before the sun lets itself down
It breaks through the clouds and gives the hills a liquid crown
Andrew’s on his way back from the depths of town
Slaps his Keds into the dust with a frown
And he’s always looking for a girl
Looking for a girl to know him
Talking to himself, the best and only pal he has
All about how she will be a friend, not a lover
But Andrew wants to love her
He really needs to love her.
But time comes for him to go home
He knows he’s safe inside the headphones…
© 1977-2008 by Mark Shepard, all rights reserved
Commentary: Definitely described me as a teenager…totally awkward, in my own world. I’d come home from school and basically disappear into the headphones. I was listening more to Queen, Elton John, Pink Floyd, Cat Stevens, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell and other 70’s singer/songwriter types where the lyrics mattered. As far as dating went…didn’t really know how to ask a girl out but wanted to. Afraid to pick up the phone. lonely. and definitely screwed up by wanting a best friend or a lover but not getting that at age 16 it’s like not supposed to be a big deal. Wouldn’t re-live that crap for anything. Not a bad song though for a 16 year old songwriter huh? Still blows my mind to hear it. – Mark
Boredom
Boredom
10/19/08 | Song #384
How many guys tonight will
Buy you drinks and tell you
Just how hot you are
But you know what they want to sell you….
Excruciating Boredom….
I’m not one of the puppies
I don’t care if you like me
Do not need your approval
Raise your bitch shield just to spite me
It just excites me…
Stop looking in the mirror
Peek outside your bubble
Buy me a beer and I will
Let you come a little nearer
Unless of course you are too boring…
Refrain:
I’m here to rescue you from boredom
I’m here to tease you into freedom…
Explore the edge of all your limits…
You know you want it. Now admit it…
You tell yourself you want somebody
Who will treat you like a lady
But what would it be like to be
With someone who took you much less seriously?…
And rescued you from boredom…
Who knows just how you’re wired
Who knows what buttons move you
Who knows just how to lead you
Where you want to go…
Escape with me from boredom…
Refrain:
You can always go suburban
Get yourself a nice safe husband
Give birth to 2 nice children
It’s a story with a happy end…
Excruciating Boredom…
I’m not the guy who you would
Take home to your family…
But when you’re in your eighties
You will remember me
And how I rescued you from boredom…
Refrain :
copyright 2008 by Mark Shepard. All Rights Reserved
Commentary: This song was inspired by the work of Ron Louis and David Copeland, two dating coaches for men who I’ve gotten to know over the years. Ron and I have been talking for sometime about doing a workshop to help painfully shy guys clear their old fear around women programs. Basically Ron’s story is a lot like mine. He suffered from agoraphobia and eventually got fast help with NLP. I don’t know David as well but the bottom line is that these guys created a powerful home study course (which I reviewed on http://www.squidoo.com/datingapproachanxiety ) on how to have fun engaging conversations with women that build attraction through connection and disconnection. They call it “The Advanced Bad Boy Training Course” and it’s main purpose is to give the “nice” guy or the shy, nerdy man the tools to hold his own in conversation with the kinds of women who can totally destroy a guy’s self esteem in seconds.
So, true to my compulsive songwriting habit, I wrote a song from the perspective of this alpha male style approach (vs. the “nice guy” or “boring nervous bonehead” approach) that Ron and David are advocating for men.
BTW for my wonderful feminist fans, this is not in any way about manipulating, or using or taking advantage of women. This is not remotely misogynistic. It’s basically giving guys the tools to play on the same conversational playing field that women enjoy relating on. The reason you find so many of us guys dreadfully dull, boring and even creepy is that we just don’t have a clue how to actually interact with high quality women like you.
So please listen to the song and let me know what you think in the comments section below.
thanks! – Mark
Some other links that might be of interest:
Welcome to Where You Are
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.