It’s Only Been a Million Years

It's Only Been a Million Years

I’m writing today’s post backwards.

So, you’ll have to wait a little while until I can ammend this post with some… uh… content.

Ah… I’m back.

There will be some reading this who will question my understanding of the basic precepts and conventions of the blog form. To them I say:

Conventions are for Shriners.

Actually, it was just that I hit the SUBMIT button by mistake — and the robots who act as majordomos to the blogosphere’s infrastructure get downright hissy when you ping them and then there’s no blog there when they trundle over to see what you got.

So I ended up for a few minutes with nothing much but a picture and some links to today’s song (as well as a link to the arguably superior earlier version).

Now… you may say… how is that really different from — hey, don’t hit that backbutton yet… oops. Too late. Everyone else, maybe I just ought to direct you to today’s song (with a quick sidenote to my fellow podcasters and musicians).

PRODUCTION NOTE: Once again, I used my new 80 dollar Samson C01U USB microphone to record the day’s track. (This time Iused the software EQ, reverb, and compression tools I normally use. Or misuse, as the case may be.) I mention this only because I waited for months for someone to buy and report on the quality and effectiveness of this mic, in vain. You can take a look at yesterday’s post which is more or less devoted to the subject.

previous AYoS version

It’s Only Been a Million Years

One day you’ll wake up
and figure out I’ve gone
Only thing surprising
took so damn long

It’s only been a million years
since I had a dream
It’s only been forever
since I felt a thing

One day I love you
next day I don’t
Hard to believe
You didn’t know

It only takes an instant
for the hottest flame to die
it only takes forever
to spend your life wondering why

It’s only been a million years
since I had a dream
It’s only been forever
since I felt a thing

It's Only Been a Million Years

As far as I can figure the lyrics to this song (writing them and investing them with meaning are separate processes, y’know?) the protagonist is a kind of downtrodden everyman/everywoman… about how I figured someone married to me would turn out in a decade or two. Or six months.

These are the kind of elemental lyrics that make songwriters like me want to mumble (as if I could still pretend to shame after these nearly 90s songs) and it is only commitment to the process that allows me to grit and paste them into this post. But one of the most important lessons of rock and roll, I think, is that, if you have stupid lyrics to sing, sing them loud. Mumbling stupid lyrics is sure to invite eventual abuse. Shouting them out proudly, stupidly, now, that, my friend, was rock and roll.