About
1981
Written at the end of my Senior year of high school, these lyrics tell a highly dramatized version of how I lost my class ring during a night at Somerville Lake after the prom. I’d say about 95% of the lyrics are true; the remaining 5% have to do with my tossing the ring into the lake in the morning after I awoke next to my date somewhere in the dunes. To be quite honest, when I woke up the ring was gone and I was so drunk the night before, I had no clue what happened to it. So I made that part up.
I really like the simplicity and spare arrangement of this song. It was composed in the midpoint of the sessions (song 20 out of 33), and I feel it really represents a milestone in me learning to work within the limitations of my voice, and to arrange the music to express what I heard in my head, vs. just tweaking the knobs and settling for the results. I also like the simplicity and raw honesty of the lyrics (except for the lie about throwing the ring in the lake), which is so different from all those flowery and baroque verses I wrote just a few years earlier.
For many years I considered myself a look forward/go forward kind of guy who didn’t wallow in hopeless nostalgia for the “good old days”. Working on songs like this forced me to revisit my backstory, and although I hate to admit it, I may have really enjoyed the experience…
Music available on all major streaming and social platforms. Watch video below.