![\"25](\"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/ayearofsongs\/images\/blogimages\/25guitars-2.jpg\")
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S<\/span>outhern California has more washed up stars than Mexican and Thai restaurants combined. Any AA or NA meeting is going to have at least an Emmy or Grammy winner or two and maybe an Oscar winner, ya never know.<\/p>\n Most of them had an orderly descent from the firmament, cushioned by gradually fading popularity, side jobs, new careers.<\/p>\n But the idea that grabbed me from the very first line out of my mouth as I wrote this song (“Go back home and tell all the kids \/ this is what it’s like when your hero hits the skids”) was a guy who suddenly seemed to just snap, throwing away or losing everything almost overnight.<\/p>\n As I saw the protagonist (AYoS fans will be nodding their heads knowingly, they can see it coming now), he had doomed himself by abandoning the girl back home<\/span> in his ambition and lust for adventure. (What? You were thinking his business manager embezzled all his dough?)<\/p>\n I wanted to capture that tractionless, slow-mo panic as everyday chores become herculean challenges and doubt erodes the most basic presumptions. I also wanted to give expression to my estimation of the moral depth of the music business in LA.<\/p>\n It’s worth noting — as I think there’s room for unintended interpretation in these lines — with the reference to a “noose” I was looking to suggest a phantasmagoric public execution<\/span> — against the expected context of suicide. To me, the “bottom dropping out” is the trap door in the gallows. He laughs the whole way down because it’s such a relief when he finally quits trying to hold his life together.<\/p>\n And — at the risk of overexplaining (oops, too late) when he wakes up in the gutter and he’s dreaming <\/span>that he dreamed<\/span> he threw it all away — he’s not really <\/span>talking about the condo and the 25 guitars.<\/p>\n\n