If The Supper Club was a love letter to Song Fight!, this one’s a Dear John.
In 2024, Song Fight! Live finally came back as an in-person event, after several years away due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When I arrived in Denver, though, I felt like I was only there out of obligation, and over the course of the next few days I felt like maybe I was done with Song Fight! for so many reasons. The community was a great way for me to get started as a songwriter, but it was starting to feel like I needed to pull back a bit and not be so emotionally-invested in it.
Over the next few days I had several good conversations with close friends in the community. They didn’t make me feel much better about Song Fight! itself (and in fact helped me to put words to some of the specific things I was feeling particularly bad about), but they did make me feel better about thinking it was time for me to move on.
I so was burned out and so frustrated at this thing that had been so important to me for so long, over half of my life at this point. The other music I’d been doing – small solo performances and scoring for video games and short films – was making me much happier than this ongoing thing, this community that used to bring me such joy.
So for the live fight title of “Valley Highway,” I decided to write a swan song.
But being up on stage, performing with friends, getting the reactions from folks about how much I’ve grown over the years and how much better we’ve all become for having participated in this ridiculous thing for so long? I started to feel a lot better.
I’m still not sure I want to be quite so involved in Song Fight! anymore, but at least I feel good about the time I’ve spent with it, and it’ll probably always be there for me when I need it.
Song Fight! has been so important to me, but it’s okay to move on.
It is time for me to go Down this newly open road I am grateful for how I have Had some of the best times of my life
Looking to the setting sun Looking out for number one Half a life is better than Having never lived a life at all Stuffed inside a letterbox Regrets and things better left unsaid
Here we are In the valley of my dreams
Time to fly Try to live up to my means
I remain so grateful for some Of the best times of my life
Under stormy desert skies Where my former passion lies Chasing down a memory of Better times and times left yet to come Fix my broken wings right up Because it’s long past time for me to fly
Here we are On the highway to my dreams
I remain forever grateful For some of the best times of my life
It was August 2004. I had just moved to New York City in July, and I had dreams of establishing myself as a musician and also finally transitioning and being able to be myself.
Turns out that “myself” is still just super introverted and socially anxious, and places like New York wear me down faster than they build me up.
Anyway the bit about “start a new family” was inspired by a stupid cishet-normative ad for life insurance that was plastered all over the subway at the time, about a mediocre man wanting to start a family and have two kids. In my take on it in the lyrics I never actually specify which part of the family I’d be taking, and I like to think that I’m just some sort of random factor that leads to a family being started without any continuing involvement of my own. Or maybe I’m the family pet. Who knows. This song is about random nerve firings that were going through my brain while sitting lonely on the subway and feeling isolated, and not about my actual aspirations.
This song always sort of felt like it would be the pivotal moment in a semi-fictional musical about my life, and I guess that in the end, that’s kind of what this album as a whole is.
This song would also be the second-to-last Song Fight! song I entered under the “band” name “fluffy porcupine.”
New York was, also, not the place for me, and a few months after first recording Run Faster (which was about my job situation in New York), I would end up moving to Seattle, and it was time to reinvent myself again. I experimented with a few different band names before finally settling on “Sockpuppet,” a reference to how many other names I’d been operating under, and how I am one person presenting myself as an entire ensemble.
In effect, this song marked the ending of one chapter in my life, and the beginning of the next. But my story is still being written, at least for now.
Just like in a picture show I know where I want to go This is not the place for me And I’m moving on
There are people that I know In the place I want to go I can be what I wanna be I hope I’m not wrong
I think it’s time for me to get my five minutes of fame When I get there everybody will be so glad that I came It won’t be so long before everyone knows my name Without a doubt we’ll talk about the Things I never ever thought I’d Find someone to talk to about
Just like in a picture show I know where I’m gonna go This just seems so right for me It’s like I’m already gone
All the people that I know Tell me where I need to go In a day or two or three Nothing will be wrong
I think it’s time to start again with a brand new life Leave behind some of a past that has been filled with strife Start a new family, two kids, a husband, and a wife I sold my car I’m going far to Start again beginning friendship With five minutes left to the end
Just like in a picture show I know where I’m gonna go This is not the place for me Goodbye, and so long
Lazy jazz turns into screamy punk. While going through my archives I found out that I’d actually tried resuscitating this project for a few other albums and it never quite worked out then either. I have scrapped versions in foodsexsleep and in Songs of Substance. I’d forgotten all about that.
I always wanted a bird of my own My mother had one but it had flown Away when she opened the window To let it be free as she loved it so
She always said that it would be, “If you love someone you set them free” And I know that I would love it so And I would open the window
It’s always sad when one’s not good Being in a cage made of Norwegian wood I’d hope that someone would love me so Much as to open my window
I once had a man, or should I say He once had me for a single day I thought that he had loved me so But he would not open my window
I flew away in a single day He chased me but I ran away Back to a place that I could be Myself and by myself be free
I think it’s time for me to get my five minutes of fame When I get there everybody will be so glad that I came And it won’t be so long before everyone knows my name Without a doubt we’ll talk about the Things I never ever thought I’d Find someone to talk to about
Just like in a picture show I know where I’m gonna go It just seems so right for me Like I’m already gone
It’s about time to start again with a brand new life Leave behind some of a past that has been filled with strife Start a new family, two kids, a husband, and a wife I sold my car I’m going far to Start again beginning friendship With five minutes left to the end