More than once I’ve been asked by a friend if I could play for them the first song that I wrote. If you’ve been following along up to this point you may recall that the actual first song I wrote is pretty unplayable. So instead, I opt to play a song called “No More.”
“No More” is definitely not the first song that I wrote, but my mirky memory convinces me that it’s likely the first song committed to what I would have considered a “official” recording. It’s the first song I multitracked, put on a compact disc (when those were still a thing people would listen to), and handed to people in a hand-printed sleeve. It was track 1 of 3 on a demo that served to prepare the way for the reception of the audacious full length follow-up titled, Formation of the Song.
This song first started taking shape during the summer of 2000 when I began furiously writing songs as if my life depended on it. I was living at home, working at an art supply store where I had a lot of time alone to listen to music and think and write.
So that is what I did.
I scoured the library for records I’d never heard, I thought my thoughts, and I wrote in my notebooks day and night. I was collecting ideas and connecting words for songs, but composing actual songs from those ideas and words was a bit like trying to make a lasagna out of a bag of flour and a tomato…
And also a cow… because to say that my guitar proficiency was anything more than rudimentary would be laughable (the guitar is a cow in this ridiculous metaphor. I will let you work the rest out on your own).
As summer was winding down I moved into a small apartment, got married, and made a minor investment in a four-track recorder which I could use to finally get these ideas and words on tape, layering sounds and sad attempts at singing lyrics that gave the impression of a song… layers like a lasagna… or something.
Months rolled by during which I compiled an ample collection of audio cassettes consisting of hours of me hammering words I’d written into song-like shapes. I was armed only with a couple of guitars, an electric keyboard, and my very, very, very, very, very untrained voice. But most importantly, I had something that I wanted to say. I had something to say that I hoped someone else might want to hear, but whether they did or didn’t was secondary. Writing songs became something that I needed to do for me.
By the following year, I had amassed a big enough collection of songs that I started thinking about them in terms of a full-length album. By this time I was teaching myself to mix down my four-track to a digital workstation which provided endless (for better or worse) possibilities for additional tracks and editing.
I got creative and indulgent without having a clue what I was doing. But I couldn’t get enough of it.
The first recording that I began working on was a song I’d written as a rage-fueled kiss-off to an old friend. We had been inseparable for about five years or so and were no longer on speaking terms. They were now dead to me and I was quite content to keep it that way.
Disclaimer: I’m about to share a thinly-veiled description of having lived with an eating disorder for several years. I understand the sensitivity of this issue and want to mention it up front especially for readers for whom this may be a heavy topic.
This former companion of mine was a real asshole. They made me feel shame and contempt toward my body, and tormented me with that shit twenty-four-seven. During the lowest season of our time together, I had lost about twenty pounds, was severely underweight, and had emotionally shut out just about everyone close to me. Any promise of mental well-being was usurped by an obsessive compulsive fixation on the sum of my physical weight and caloric intake. My daily dietary patterns consisted of depriving myself of food until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Then I would gorge myself until I couldn’t anymore, send everything back out the way it came, and suffer the scourge of self-loathing that immediately followed.
Five goddam years this went on.
It was a kind of hell.
And then, in the holy sanctuary of a Taco Bell bathroom, the curse was lifted.
There’s a lot more that could be said about this part of my life (maybe I’ve already overshared). I don’t exactly know how or why my old friend finally hit the bricks once and for all after years of me swearing we were through. At the time it seemed like a miracle. Like the hand of the Almighty Herself lifted me out of the miry muck and set me on solid ground. And it very well may have been. But I also know it doesn’t work out that way for everyone. I also worried for years afterward that my toxic companion would show up again and sweep the legs right out from under me.
Maybe that’s why I wrote the song “No More.” To say, “Good Riddance! Don’t bother coming around here again, because you have NO MORE power over me!” Maybe I was still exercising that demon, and the act of putting those words into a dis-track that I could squawk out loud, commit to tape, and distribute to family and friends was the final step in eradicating it once and for all.
I don’t know.
I’ve looked back at this song to find so many of what I consider less-than-favorable qualities of my early songs (most notably in the recorded version). But whenever I strum those chords and sing those lyrics, it still feels empowering to howl, in the raw sentiment of that novice songwriter, “PISS OFF!”
No More
You no longer will ever see me falling on my knees You’re at the end of the rope and I hope that the noose don’t fit too loose for you to breathe I was so wrong to let you whisper in my ear All of the dirty lies, now you can find yourself the door and let yourself disappear You held me by my hand just to twist the thorn But that ain’t happening That ain’t gonna happen no more Every scar that you inflicted, I finally licked it You’ll never see me crawl through all your pitfalls ever again, never again Take your stifling hands from off of my throat I won’t bow before your thrown Cause the table’s turning, your disease is burning backwards Until it’s gone, gone, gone Such a life of isolation, Barren and forlorn But that ain’t happening That ain’t gonna happen no more No longer will the image of you blister in my head Chasing you, erasing you, I can’t believe I believed the lies you said to me, A pawn imprisoned with your finger down my throat Purging me, I’m emerging free Could it be you don’t own me It seems like I’ve been fighting and inviting you forever But I’m afraid that our love/hate relationship’s gone on too long So it’s about that time for me to cut ties and unwind the tether Because the fact is that this codependence goes to prove that you were always wrong So wrong, so long No longer will the image of you blister in my head Chasing you, erasing you, I can’t believe I believed the lies you said to me, A pawn imprisoned with your finger down my throat Purging me, I’m emerging free Could it be you don’t own me