Adopt-An-Orphan
I have rarely, if ever, been the sort of prolific songwriter who leaves finished songs by the side of the road. Reading stories of famous musicians who come into the studio with dozens of songs, only to cull the fold down to ten or so, can leave me feeling lazy when I come into a project with eight and the plan is to milk every one to the last drop. The question that I often ask is if you have only written eight songs, what are the chances all of those eight songs are actually good? What are the chances you're operating at a 100% success rate?
The question posed back is "who cares?" Though I have to own that I do, this sort of discourse is really just about taking yourself a bit too seriously. By extension, this is the root of my constant urge to curate. As A Metropolitan Guide has continued on (now into Year 10!), there have been many times when I have sought to restructure my approach, my catalog, or even my releases.
In 2020, as I was working on Alternate Histories Vol. I, the thought occurred to me that with several albums out and little audience/success to show for it, maybe the time was right to hit the reset button. After I finished recording Alternate Histories, I assembled what I deemed some kind of "greatest hits" collection that intended to serve as a "new" first album. It consisted of 11 songs scattered amongst the five previous releases that I felt served as the best foot forward, simultaneously providing the kind of editing I mentioned above. This new hybrid creature was now 11 songs out of a possible 45, and so felt like a viable exercise in purging and curation.
I felt good about that approach until I realized that ignoring the parts of my catalog that I didn't love was a flimsy method to manufacture self-esteem. It was like a social media profile of my musical life --only the pictures with the best lighting, the life events that elevate me in the eyes of others. Ultimately, I love my musical journey, even if (many) parts of it are lacking or embarrassing.
Looking at my original song list that now stands at 91, I count 12 songs that, at some point in time, were considered finished and never recorded. Three were in my first months of writing (2009), prior to my recording of anything, and four others were destined for Something with Trees' second release that we never completed. The other five were never under real consideration at a recording juncture.
"Orphans," the sixth track on The One That Isn't Burned, was one of the four songs that I wrote that initially belonged to Something with Trees. That version was significantly different from the version that appears here. New verses, new structure. The only thing that remains the same is the "And for tonight there's no direction home..." verse. The song sat untouched for about ten years, living only through a few scattered requests from equally scattered people about the whereabouts of it, and my insistence that it would appear someday --in my head, this would be most likely on another Alternate Histories release, as some b-side that I could release while simultaneously keeping my distance.
The final verse was something written across the last year:
But it's probably best to think before you go off starting wars
with someone who's got nothing to lose
You can call it a cheap shot
but all is fair in love and war
And I don't mean to make it out of this alive
Like a kamikaze coming from the sky
This was intended to be the beginning of a song called "Kamikaze," but it struggled to develop beyond this section. I opted to combine it with the "Orphans" chorus, which I have always been fond of. Sarah and I started building musical bridges between the four different sections that you hear in this new version.
As for what it's about, I can't say that I entirely know yet. The earlier version was centered around me more or less staring at my CD/DVD shelf and pulling references from it: "Beatles' cries for Help," (The Beatles) "Between the Glitter and the Doom and their fear," (Tom Waits), "But for tonight there's no direction home" (Martin Scorsese's Dylan documentary) were all lyrics in the 2012 version.
This new version is perhaps equally evasive, but feels a bit more autobiographical. Especially that third section:
So fare them well
Brothers and sisters, fare them well
I've wasted enough time chasing down this dream of mine
Like an orphan on a missing person sign
Unclaimed, and unrecognized
But in perfect view so life can keep on passing by
Like so many songs before it, this autobiographical bent was not intentional, but there is a traceable path to be followed in relation to how I often feel about the prospect of creating music --something that has taken immense amounts of time, has often been very visible, and yet leaves me more or less unknown amongst society. Where a song like "Train City" from The Grand Revolution of Lakeside speaks to a lack of ownership of this creative world, "Orphans" takes a quieter, more solemn view of this conundrum, even bordering on acceptance. Defeat without antagonism for what has defeated you.
How it combines with the final "Kamikaze" verse feels hopeful at the time of this writing. It's not a case of "it's all going to work out!" or that my big break is just over the horizon, but rather "Hey, you got beat. What you feared could happen, happened. So, now, you've got nothing to lose. Go cause some trouble."
I like it.