“Perched” (acoustic demo)(Santo/Darragh/Corcoran/Gresh)

there you were perched upon my door

staring, cawing

soul all torn, soul all torn

you clawed, you scratched

flew off the handle

& relapsed, & relapsed

i was there with you, i was there with you

bright bathroom lights, bright bathroom lights

late sleepless nights, late sleepless nights

at least we had, at least we had

each other, each other, each other

to smother, to smother

each other, to smother

*This recording is an iphone ‘voice memo’, fly on the wall, capture the moment style of recording. This was a song made in the moment. Joe Santo is on a synthesizer, Ryan Gresh and Evan Darragh are on acoustic guitars, and I am on vocals. I wrote the lyrics in the moment too. We were in a band called “Major Input” at the time of this recording and we were brainstorming trying to come up with a song as a group, although our drummer, Justin Thouret, had just left for the night.

This song is ultimately about toxic relationships. It’s a confluence of being close friends with a male/female toxic relationship and also being close friends with a male/male substance abuse relationship.

**11/02/2016** Love the people this song is about, they were just going through hard times. The line “I was there with you” on the surface could be interpreted as I went through the hard times with them, and I did very indirectly, but it was actually written in frustration about the male/male toxic relationship about a night where a group of our friends all got together and went bowling. I was hoping by providing a healthy alternative they would enjoy that, but, and perhaps I am wrong about this, in my mind they were still all messed up and snuck off to a bathroom together to “smother each other”. The “I was there with you” is a, “I can’t believe you guys did that when you know all of the problems it has caused you and our relationships”. Sadly hard drugs corrupt and within a year one of the males succumbed to addiction. The male/female relationship also broke up. After the “I was there with you” I began to imagine what it was like to actually be in the toxic relationship.

My hope is the sadness of this song is conveyed and there is no glamor or coolness associated whatsoever with using hard drugs. Specifically, heroin kills and ruins lives. I know this song can be interpreted as being about cocaine too, and yes, my stance is that addiction to cocaine and any drug is thoroughly not cool and not glamorous. It is just plain sad and a waste of precious resources.

As a recording I enjoy the live aspect, the synthesizer in harmony with the acoustic guitars, and the capturing of lightning in a bottle.