Blood Brothers

Discussion

Lyrics

Blood Brothers

laughing in the swimming pool
swinging from ropes on trees
we talked of things I don't recall
we were dirt and scabby knees
we acted out our favorite scenes
from our favorite TV shows
we explored the savage woods
that were the hedge in my back yard

[chorus]
you were part of me I was part of you
and together we would be
we knew that we were both alike
brothers bound by common need
I guess I knew you were crazy
when your hand it was you sliced
and made me swear blood brothers
as your blood dripped off the knife

Well those were the good old days
of secrets hidden deep
pretending everything was fine
and the sorrow underneath
well one day your family moved
and left a vacant house
I forgot your name like children do
when they have a broken heart

[chorus]

I grew up and went away to school
got a degree and got a job
I lived away for fifteen years
until I moved back from afar
I volunteer for the shelter
where I saw you on a cot
I didn't say hello to you
before the lights went out

[chorus]

I wonder about secrets
that you never told
I remember prayers to God above
whose grace it is I know
I could have been the one who was
on that cot last night
you could have been the one who lived
and who won that fight
you were part of me I was part of you
and together we would be
what was it that tore us apart
and shaped our paths so differently?

Afterword

The provenance of this song is difficult. The only recording I had of this was done on Slackware 95 (I can tell because I had not figured out how to use "waverec" properly), which means it must have been between late 1995 and early 1996 during the early burst of creativity that created songs like "Mikey's Dream" and "Dead Children". I obviously did not like the song much because I never tried to create a "proper" recording (one that was not sped up like Donald Duck on crack!). It took a while for me to resurrect the chord changes out of the mess. Maybe I shouldn't have bothered, because it seems to me that it wasn't the lyrics or the story that I hated, it was the tune around it.

For this recording I have re-arranged the lyrics slightly (compared to the original) to get a longer chorus. As usual, this is a first take, done after a couple of hours of practice on a song I had not played or sung for at least 5 years, and it shows with plenty of busted notes and missed cues. My work schedule keeps me from doing the obsessive practice, multiple takes, multi-track mixing, etc. that I'd like to do, and besides, I still don't like this song enough for that (I need to figure out a way to fix the tune, maybe I need to fix it the same way that I "fixed" Dead Children's tune, i.e., switch keys for the chorus).

I did some interesting things to my voice for this recording, thanks to n-Track Studio. If I re-mix it I'll turn down the reverb a bit (it's a little over-the-top), but hey, aside from a few busted notes here and there, I sound almost like a damned opera singer here! Too bad none of my songs were really written to be sung by an opera singer, they were mostly designed to be sung by someone with Bob Dylan's voice (grin).

I'd credit a certain female artist who was part of the whole Lilith Fair deal for the inspiration for the first verse, but I don't remember her name or what song I was listening to. That was five years ago!