the otherside

i have virtually no memories of writing this song
i have no idea where it came from
i have a date that says i was there and wrote it
on that day
i think this was the first line that came to me

"on the happiest day of my life i was sad"

it's possibly my favorite lyric on noise
almost like an imaginary line
drawn in the sand
people who get what i mean by this
step over to the other side
come on board
you know what beautiful noise is all about
people who think this is a miserably dark
depressing
gloom-mongering sentiment
sorry...
maybe the next myspace act that spams you
is more deserving of your entertainment dollars?

i love life so much
that i don't want to let go of it
it's ok to be sad
it's ok to be scared
i want to face my sadness
and fear
not run away anymore
the otherside is my attempt
to face these things
within the confines of a song

there is a melancholy that always finds its way to me
during the best moments of my life
with my family and friends
i can't help but think
if even for a second
that i want these people i love to always be there
to never have to say goodbye
for these moments to never stop
why is it all so fleeting?
so real
so vivid
so beautiful
then gone
you know
in a split second...
did i take a photo?
make a video?
write a song about?
or a poem?
capture it in a painting?
if there' one subject i keep coming back to
over and over again
it's obviously this one
i've written about it every which way i know how
looked at it from every angle
"one foot stuck in the past"
"those days are gone"
"christmas eve"
"missing you"
"polaroid"
to only name a few
and i'm back to it again
on the otherside

i don't play this song live much
'cause i don't often feel like drawing the line
night after night
or singing
"are you afraid of dying?
'cause i'm afraid of dying"
in a bar full of people
out to have a good time
i feel self-conscious sometimes
it makes me uncomfortable

coming into the recording of noise
i thought this was one of the better ones i'd written
but it was a real nightmare to record it
98 tracks and 4 months later
i finally arrived at something i could live with
but it was a gigantic hair pulling fiasco to get there
although every other song on BN was relatively painless
to put down
the otherside was the screaming kicking brat of the bunch
one of the problems was
the polaroids had been playing it live
because i was so excited about the song
then i made the mistake of recording it
for the live pleasantry lane cd
as soon as that happened the otherside lost
all its noise version mojo
i don't believe in making "demos"
for this reason
the life of every new song always escapes
immediately the first time you record it
it's like letting the genii out of the bottle
i've seen it happen time and time again
so i've stopped making demos
and i refuse to record anyone who wants to make a demo
they always wonder why the "real" recording failed to capture
something the demo had
it's almost as if the songs soul has left its body