Eternal Mermaid of the Spotless Atlantis

I don't know how, but I feel guilty about a song I wrote. And lately, even though the song is four years old, it's been really bugging me.

Maybe it's finally hearing the song fully realized in well-recorded form. Maybe it's remembering when the song was written and knowing it was a rough time in my life when I was less than a good person. And I'm a bit stymied that such an asshole could write such a beautiful song.

And I'm not sure I would have written the song if I hadn't been such an asshole. For a while, every time this guilt would rear it's head, I would aspire to fight fire with fire and write a song in response to it. Sort of like a sequel to the original song. But as most of my over-calculated attempts at writing go, so has this one. And I've been left with squat. Until now. As it usually happens, I finally got into my redemption song through the back door.

So to speak.

So many times, I've started writing a song about (in best William Shatner voice) some thing, something in particular, only to get to the end of the song and realize I've really been writing about something else. It's very strange in a way, but I've come to embrace it and it's resulted in a bunch of songs which convey (I hope) the very ambiguity that figured into their genesis.

Anyway, I recently saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the first time and it really affected me... just a beautiful movie which manages to accomplish what I often try to do in song: make a simple point through a sophisticated, poetic and challenging vehicle.

In the case of ESotSM, I felt that the underlying theme was this very real struggle couples go through in reconciling the inevitable negatives of everyday, mundane life, with their pure magical (for lack of a better word) love for each other. So I started writing a song about this idea... I had some nice chords worked out and a first verse and chorus came fairly quickly. Then things kind of stalled. I knew I wanted three verses, and nothing was happening.

After a week of frustration, a second verse was born, but thematically it was quite different. Ditto a third verse. I noticed that these verses were really more personal than the first, and I began to see that this core idea of ESotSM had some relation to the time in my life when I wrote the "guilt producing" song. And so, I hope, I've written a suitable sequel...

ATLANTIS Wouldn't we all like it back? When this was new, and there was no past To rob us of the sun that shines On the moment when we both realized Chorus: I'm right here It's still clear Why it's worth All these tears And on that wall above the sea Where the wine-dark waters sing their melody We watch the island come alive With crosses, white against the Grecian sky Chorus And now we've come down off the wall Even empires and islands rise and fall We watch the sunset streak the sky And know it's a dawn for other eyes Chorus

jbg