Listen to the record version:
A quiet thought on one of the quietest songs on Look Alive, Again and Again.
A quick review of my writing journal tells me this was written on October 18 and 19, 2006, very quickly, with almost no revisions.
As far as I can tell, it was the last song written for Look Alive other than When You Left, which was written almost as an afterthought as we were recording. So Again and Again completed the group of songs we had when we started tracking. In fact, I think in my cryptic notes I can even see where I got some recording dates from Jay... Weird.
Also weird is that I can see how I was simultaneously writing tunes for what became Look Alive, and still writing new material for Burn Rome Burn. In fact, the creation of Again and Again is kind of folded into my work on BRB tunes called Slowly and Falling Into, which we never really got together.
I really enjoy revisiting this song because in both creation and recording it marks a turning point for me.
Its simplicity is really an emblem of me getting fully confident with both lyrical and musical directness in a way I had never been before.
And the performance on the recording... it was done in one take, all live, in the attic overlooking the highway where we recorded... in the second verse, if you listen carefully after I sing the word "faces," you can hear the Blue Line go by quietly in the background, like the city making a guest appearance on background vocals.
Everything about the song and take screams intimacy (kind of an oxymoron of an image for a quiet song, but still).
Truthfully, I envisioned all of what became Look Alive sounding like this song. I'm forever grateful that we pushed some of the material into a more upbeat full band setting and even more grateful that we left this song exactly the way we did, a perfect record of an unsteady marriage of hope and heartbreak slipping towards the latter.
AGAIN AND AGAIN
Meet me beneath the moon
We'll have our worries on the powerlines
And forget about the days
When we lost our way
And start over again
And again and again and again
Meet me beside the lake
We'll wash our faces in the waters
And dry our swollen eyes
In the golden sun
And start over again
And again and again and again
Meet me in the bed
We'll burn our fears with a midnight flame
And scatter the remains
With trembling lips
And start over again
And again and again and again
And again and again and again...
jbg
