I'm gonna try to showcase one of my back catalog songs everyday. It's good practice for...something.
Above is a video from last years record - Nostalgia Kills - release show at City Winery.
Here is the recording from the record--- here!
I have a small head. As a pre-teen, I had a pea-sized head. So picture me with this pair of gigantic Koss headphones on. They covered half my face, and must have weighed at least three pounds. I even wore them around the house when I wasn’t plugged in. I liked the heft and size. The foam against my ears made me feel safe. I could shut out the world around me. I could shut out my parents arguing. I could fill in the silence of a lonely unpopular shitty 7th grade where the phone wasn’t ringing off the hook with party or date offers. But I did have friends like Bowie’s Major Tom, The Kinks, Lola, and Elton’s Bennie (with his electric boots and mohair suits). I also somehow found comfort in characters that had it way worse than me: like the sad and crazy Delta Dawn, John Prine's Vietnam Vet junkie Sam Stone, and even that deeply in need of love or meds, Eleanor Rigby.
I wasn’t a total downer. I did believe that one day I would be able to take the headphones off. One day I could unplug and actually share my music with someone else- someone special and maybe a little odd like me… Maybe, at the new school next Fall? I kept on playing repeatedly and believing, “ooh-oo child things are gonna get easier. Ooh-oo child things'll get brighter…”
I Put My Headphones On
I’m in the wings when you push me on
But I never learned the words to the songs
And there I stand naked, they’re staring at me, laughing at me
I’m by the locker turning the dial
The hallway is empty and stretches for miles
Then I’m on a boat heading over the falls
You reach for my hand but it just breaks off
I suddenly wake up was only a dream
I’m back in the gilt cage that you made for me
But when you are working or fast asleep
I put my headphones on
I put my headphones on
I’m in the backyard burying the bones
Don’t know why I did it, hope no one will know
I can’t seem to hide the remains of my crime, I never learned to fly
I suddenly wake up was only a dream