JBR'S SONGS/PAINFUL MEMORY

I do not know what prompted me to, but I pulled out my old notebook yesterday of songs that I wrote myself with my guitar as a teenager into my late 20's. The first being after my parents divorce and I was forced to move away to NY at age 12 to live with my mother and then step-father.

I have not looked at these songs in ages. Most of them I do not even know how they go anymore. A lot of the earlier ones are just fluff about inadamant objects, i.e. swizzle sticks, sheets, fire, dogs, space travel. Later on the majority were God related. Even with those I find hard to believe what I wrote back then was what I was feeling. Now if I wrote them today, a different story. I have written close to 200 songs.

Seeing the words to these songs is like I am looking at someone else's writings. This is NOT me. These words are not mine. These thoughts and feelings were not true. Closest thing I could come up with is that these songs were my fantasies in my mind. I wrote about what I conspired in my thoughts. Back then, unfortunately, I could not express my "own" pain in words.

In reading these over, only a handful had "some" truth behind them. As I was looking over these songs, I found only one that sort of dealt with my past. Which surprised me that I even wrote about.

I have no memory of writing this song. But there it is in black and white. Sadly only one song out of 200 that had some truth to it. I have no clue how to even play the song or how it even went when I initially wrote it 30 years ago. Yikes! As you will see the maturity level is not there. The structure of the song deteriorates at the end and just stops abruptly as I went back into denial.

Haunt of a Memory

I remember long ago sitting on my daddy's knee.
And he whispered something to me softly.
He said,

"Daughter you're the apple of my eye.
You're my sweetie pie.
If I lost you I'd die.

Daughter you're mine all mine.
If I can't have you.
I'd just go out of my mind."

I recall now, long forgotten promises of yesteryear.
And recalling them I shed some tears.
I recall broken hearts within family squabbles.
Can tear an emotion that is not stable.

A mother and father at one's throats.
Is devastating for a very young adult.

But I don't blame you.
Too many circumstances came out of this.

Reading the words to this song is somewhat painful.

Please note, I do not recall my father ever saying those words to me. I probably only wished he had.