thebigreason

Say Goodnight

This song is about a stalker. I wrote it a very long time ago about my friend Jeannette who thought she was being stalked. This is my best song. It is also one of the last songs I wrote before my hiatus.

Good Morning Cigarettes

This is a dumb song I wrote on the way to work one morning. It was about 6AM and I seemed to pass quite a few cigarette smokers. One of them was taking to himself. I remember thinking how unappealing a cigarette seemed that early in the morning and wondering if the smokers thought the same thing, but were too involved to stop... at least until noon. Cigarettes. Cigar - ette. Like a girly cigar, or mini cigar. Kissing a butt. Sucking butt... Cigarettes is funny.

Said Words

Getting your feelings hurt or helped or jerked is commonly caused by a series of chemical reactions to echoing vibrations that emanate from a moist, hot meat hole. Our poetry, our rage and our gratitude all have better impact with action. For the most part, I'm not referring to hot oral action. Here's to hoping this entry gets me some Google.

Safety And Manners

Good manners are how you show the people around you that you respect them. Ivan says that safety is a lethal version of manners. I think he has a good point, but they often overlap. Safety is usually enforced by law, and manners are enforced by social classes. Safety gets more attention (as it should), but I think it's about time we started taking them both a little more seriously. Let this song be a lesson to you. Wash your damn hands and quit driving like an ass.

Irritating Pain

Irritating Pain fell victim to the great formatting tragedy of 2004, where my lack of understanding about the hard disk recorder I used to record it resulted in musical genocide. I lost every song I wrote in 2004. This recording is a redo from scraps of notes I found here and there. I think it's pretty close to the original, but it's impossible to be sure. I have no idea what I was writing about, but I certainly seemed to be pissed off at someone. Please feel free to interject your ideas. I decided to rerecord it because of the line "They foster the imagination like bad mom crack cocaine." WTF, man? Sometimes I freak my own self out. P.S. I also webcammed some of the recording I did yesterday. Boring and nerdy, I guess, but here it is none the less.

Spacial Relations

This song is a tribute to good moods. Moods, like weather, are opinion based. For the most part, it is expected and assumed that you prefer the sun to rain, and happy to sad. If this were the case, bands like the Cure (buy Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me) and cities like Seattle would never have been. This is probably my favorite topic to write about. Spacial Relations is scattered and contradictory like the mood it represents. It was also one of those casualties of the hard drive formatting blunder (I wrote it the same day as Irritating Pain). Perhaps some day I'll do a goth version. For now, though, melancholy rocks!

Friendly Tiger

Terrorism is stupid. Your mom was supposed to teach you not to fuck with other people's shit. Don't chop off people's heads, and don't hijack their governments. Until you can all figure out how to play nice with each other, none of you get my respect. Here is a stupid song, dedicated to your childish behavior.

Smile

Once upon a time I thought it would be neat to try a happy song about sunshine and smiles. Admittedly, it's a little cheesy. Doesn't that seem appropriate for a happy sunshine smiley song, though? The moral of the story is, if you don't have real drums at your disposal, program the ever-loving crap out of your drum machine.

The Whole World Says Hello

I have no idea what is going on here. I think it's symbolism for how song writing makes me feel. More silly happy crap, I guess.

Raise Your Guitar

I remember reading an interview with Mike Watt a long time ago where he made a derogatory comment about bass players who played guitar while touring for their solo albums. When I was writing for this record, I felt a little guilty about having to focus so much attention on the guitar, since I was responsible for doing everything. So I wrote a song for my beloved bass—sans guitar, of course. I even managed to play the race card to spice it up a bit!

Interrupting Me

This is one of those songs about the need to be self destructive in order to maintain your perspective on what is constructive.

Superstar

A song about being uncomfortable with attention. Sometimes you get it when you don't want it, even though people think you do.

There's Feeling

Yeah, a love song.

Soul And Fire

A Sebadoh cover that speaks to me.

Stay

Another song about happy for being sad.

Operator

I saw my friend's ex-boyfriend rub in her face the fact that he was seeing his ex-ex-girlfriend again. It wasn't cool. I think he got herpes and died, though. That was cool.

Time And Space Collide

Star Wars is cool. That's why I wrote this one.

Laughing

Begging for mercy song. I get this a lot.

Sarah

A song that summarizes my favorite season of Party of Five in a serenade from Bailey to Sarah. Those poor kids never had a chance.

Lesbian Lovers

How to be controversial, without being controversial. This song has something for everyone.

Sandbags

Maybe this song sounds a little like it's about Jesus. And maybe some of the other one's do to. Check out the killer bass guitar solo, though. Dude. Thunder broom. Yup.

The Way

I had a friend I used to play music with. It got weird and it stopped. It got hard.

My Final Thoughts

I wrote this when the first person I knew that died, died. I can get sentimental sometimes. I imagine that if I know it's coming, my death will be difficult for me to handle.

Just Let Them Be

What can I say? I have gay friends. Don't be a dick.

Three Gospels

Like the tax collector, the tax collector of souls isn't quite so popular. Perhaps a flawed business model. I think I could to a little better.

Normal Like Me

I had a friend I used to play music with. Like I said, it got weird.

Making No Mistakes

I don't sing in tune, nor do I care about keeping a steady rhythm, yet I have written more songs than you. Ha ha!

Really

The first in a series of the last letters written by Neil. This one is the happiest.

Old Blue

Bitter, whiney and hateful. There's the Neil we know and love...

Racing Stripes And Fire

Neil drive a mid 90's Toyota station wagon. It was blue, and it was dying. Just like his relationship.

It'll Be Iowa

It's getting scarier now. I couldn't bring myself to sing the bridge, so I had my iMac do it. I would have liked to have seen Jenny's blue hair, though. I like punk girls. Yeah, lots of blue in this record...

Love The World

I'm afraid this is the last we heard from Neil.

Hi Miss America

A terrorist falls in love with Miss America. Unrequited love in the terror community ends with the destruction of a country, rather than each other. Erie pre 9/11 bridge.

The Way You Are

Tell someone you hate that you won't tolerate them today! Really, though... Isn't life too short to have to put up with defective people?

Dreaming

I think this is about going the extra mile to ruin things. Sometimes you have to be extra sneaky.

Valerie

I wrote this song in retort to a comment Valerie made about one of my songs. It sounds quite a bit meaner than it actually is. Valerie is quite a nice person and welcome to comment on M.e. songs just like any other person.

Needs

Lots of people like different things than I do. In fact, most people don't like many of the things I do. It's lonely at the top, but that doesn't mean I'm about to start watching football or anything.

The Lonliest Quiet

A little country.

I'm Not Sad

Hit the road and drink song. A true classic.

Why Can't I Just Be Around

A don't want to go out and doing anything with anyone song.