Concept to Lyrics

A song is stewing in the slow cooker. I have a concept, a melody, and a chorus worth of lyrics typed up in Microsoft Word. I even scratched a few rough tracks into Logic Express, mostly so I would remember the flow of the music in my head.

Stemming from an idea dumped into yesterday's post, this song will reflect on the complexity of truth: how it is sought and learned, and how the realities that come with passing time shift our vantage points.

During college, I reached pride's peak, certain of how the world works and just as convinced of my ability to solve its most vexing dilemmas. Each of the eight years that followed my graduation has brought deeper awareness of exactly how little I know and understand.

A jubilant simplicity marked my childhood, a time when my world enjoyed the boundary of the front gate. Occasions for venturing past the property's edge would lead to blissful licks of ice cream or romps around the community center play structure. An abused but fitting summary: it was blissful ignorance.

Each spin around the sun would bring awareness of heavy topics like stranger danger and the evils of kidnapping, domestic violence, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, political divides, terrorism, and domestic violence. These perils never entered my sheltered world, but I can still recall specifics of how and by whom each topic was introduced to me.

We collect perspectives on the world as we go, every small event shaping us more than we like to admit. I am about to enter my thirties, and I have never been more confused about the way the world works - what is up and what is down. I observe the right side pointing crooked fingers at the left, who return the accusations with furious waves of their canes. Everyone is so convinced of their rightness, and no one is willing to open their ears to the other side of a matter.

Example: nearly everyone believes that the earth either definitely is or definitely is not heating up at an alarming rate, and both sides have their own set of bona fide scientists who back up their passionate stances with supposedly sound data. Those of like mind huddle up and furrow their brows in disbelief at the stupidity of their opponents.

I am left without a clue of what to think, except to long for a simpler way of living. The arguments are boiling pots with the tops left on, and all I want to do is run away from the scalding overflow.

That is the song. The struggle this time, as in all my other attempts, is to pen phrases that are worthy of this heavy topic. Up to this moment, most of my verses are sonic cheese; I have deleted more than I have kept.

I have posted the chorus below. These are the only lyrics that survive my otherwise fruitless writing session. There is a song worth singing here, I just don't know how it goes.

Minutes confirm what months deny
As years coax a different truth from passers by
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
We all fall down