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Being unable to write songs is one of my biggest creative frustrations. Wait, let me correct that statement. Being unable to write songs when I’m NOT madly in love with someone or depressed enough to want to be dead when I grow up is one of my biggest creative frustrations. Unlike plain old creative writing, something I can do fairly well no matter what the state of my mind is, I can only write songs when my emotions are on the negative extreme of the spectrum. And by “write songs” I mean “Come up with a bunch of random chord progressions, even though I don’t know what most of these chords are called.” I wish I could write lyrics as well, but I’ve seen sixteen year old goth girls with better angst, so I stopped trying.

I sort of wrote something new, though. Or rather, I rewrote something old. Yesterday, I was looking through the bowels of my Livejournal when I came across a poem from an Almost Boyfriend. It was the first poem anyone has EVER written for me and I remember being touched to the point of tears when I got it. Almost Boyfriend isn’t the creative type, let alone the (decent) poetry-writing type. I didn’t know what to say, so I thanked him the only way I could. On the very same day he gave me the poem, I turned it into a song, recorded it, and gave it to him.

The scratchy old recording was still in my hard drive, completely untouched by the ravages of time and the death of the last love affair. After listening to the recording several times (and trying to ignore my inability to sing), I figured out the chords, re-recorded the song, and added a solo part.

So here it is. Lyrics are by the Almost Boyfriend, melody and guitar arrangement done by me. If I were you I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the vocal quality and the fact that I sound like a six-year old girl with a terrible cold. Don’t even try to bullshit me - I know what I’m good at and I know where I suck, and I suck at singing. -_-

Checkmate
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Seeing you move in all directions,
Peasantly innocence, my protection,
The trick lies in my hiding,
Directly out of the text book,
Castling behind my rook.

We’re King and Queen,
Standing side by side,
Don’t ever leave me,
I won’t survive.

Running out of tiles,
Behind me, diabolical smiles,
A knight is on my back,
Don’t want to get knocked down
and have to relinquish my crown.

We’re King and Queen,
Standing side by side,
Don’t ever leave me,
I won’t survive.

The proverbial standstill,
A stale mate against our will,
Feeling like a duffer in this game,

We’re King and Queen,
Standing side by side,
Don’t ever leave me,
I won’t survive.
We’re King and Queen,
Standing side by side
Don’t ever leave

Lets keep each other awake,
There’s no more moves left to make.

What happened to the Almost Boyfriend, you ask? Well despite what the poem says about please never leaving him, HE was the one who left me. Apparently, he didn’t like that I kept nagging him about going back to school and getting his life together so he could become a responsible adult. Gee, so much for not being able to survive without me around.

In any case, that guitar solo is the closest thing I’ve come to writing a new song these days. I’m happy that I’m happy, but must I really be insanely in love or insane enough to want to kill myself to get touched by the songwriting muse?

I finally finished tweaking the song I wrote last night and out of boredom and sheer excitement, I decided to record it. For obvious reasons I couldn’t exactly drag Kristel over to my place so I’m the one doing the singing here. Please don’t expect much out of my voice; there’s a reason why I’m doing back-up vocals, after all.

Escape is a song that encapsulates what I feel about depression and the desperation to do something – anything – to get myself out of that funk. As I’ve mentioned in my previous entries, I realized that traveling gives me a vacation from life and from myself, but it’s a vicious cycle really. The happier I am when I’m traveling, the more depressed I get when I have to return.

We’ve decided to retain the name Borderline Virgins for our band although Kimi, our original bassist, will be sorely missed. It won’t be the same without her.

Escape
Download here

I’m going away today
I’m tired of running this race
I’m packing my bags
I’m not looking back
at this sordid space

Don’t know where I’ll end up
but it’s gotta be better than this
I’ll take one for the road
cos it’s something that I’m gonna miss

I’m flying away
from this desolate place
from this desperate state
I’ll be happy today
but it’s just an escape
but it’s just an escape
The moment fades

I’m riding a speeding bus
down a road that I’ve never been
I’m letting the wind chase down
the sweat crawling out of my skin

Don’t know where I am now
but that doesn’t matter to me
Reality’s too far
and the sunlight is all I can see

I’m flying away
from this desolate place
from this desperate state
Hey hey hey
I’ll be happy today
but it’s just an escape
but it’s just an escape

Don’t want to go back to
the place where I should belong
Tomorrow comes too soon
and then everything good will go wrong

I’ll do all that it takes
to get out of this place
to get out of this state
Hey hey hey
I’ll be happy someday
cos someday I’ll escape
cos someday I’ll escape

Na na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Hey hey hey
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na na
The moment fades

Last night, I stayed in for the first time in weeks. After the first social engagement got canceled, I quickly put Plan B into action but by the time my friends got back to me, I was too lazy to get up and get dressed. Plus my parents have been complaining that I never stay in and spend quality evenings with them. By “quality evenings” I mean, me in my room, my sister in her room, my mom in her room, and my dad downstairs watching TV. The Dado family all under one roof.

At first I was panicky about my lack of Saturday night plans. It occurs to me that I’ve grown an aversion to spending time with myself, and that lately I’ve been desperately filling up my social calendar so as to avoid those long evenings with me and my lonesome. When I’m alone I get depressed and when I get depressed–well, getting depressed isn’t exactly the best way to party on a Saturday night, is it?

But I’m all for trying out new things. So last night, I decided to skip all social activities and take up my shrink’s advice and “sit with my Depression.” The problem with me (and most people I suppose) is that I do everything it takes to avoid being depressed or deny that I’m feeling that way. But there are times when sitting down and just feeling the depression is healthy. I forgot why exactly it’s supposed to be healthy but I ignored that little detail and decided to go along with this plan. I didn’t really have much to do.

So I sat with Depression in the bathroom while Elliott Smith sang to us about faking it through the day with some help from Johnny Walker Red. I sat there for a very long time, not really thinking or doing anything. At first I thought I’d try to figure out why I was feeling depressed but once I did that, I realized it didn’t make me feel any better. Eventually, I got bored sitting with Depression because he’s really not that much fun to be with. Plus, he keeps smoking my cigarettes, which I think is very rude.

So I picked up my guitar (I had gone into my room at this point) and played a random chord. Then I played another random chord. Pretty sound the random chords started sounding good together and I had a nice little riff going right there. I sang out gibberish to the melody I made and after a while, there were words to sing along to the music as the gibberish became coherent sentences. I was amazed. It’s been months since I last wrote a song all by myself–guitars and lyrics and all–so I was pretty fucking stoked. The song I made is called Escape and it’s about doing whatever it takes to be happy and to get way from the lousy state you’re in. Of course it’s chock-full of angst and I’m sure a lot of people would say that it sucks, but who cares? I wrote a song and although it needs some tweaking, I’m pretty fucking happy with it. It’s been a while since I created something I actually like. Depression might be a lousy conversationalist, but he’s good for inspiration.

Every time I get depressed, I stay that way for a while because I keep thinking that I’ll never be happy again. Which is both true and not true, when you come to think of it. If what I want is the happily-ever-after ending propaganda spread by fairy tales and Disney cartoons, of course I’m never going be happy. But life, the way I see it, is like a long dark hallway with little dim lamps placed at random intervals. It’s all a matter of trying to find the will and determination to keep walking that scary hallway to reach those sparks of light, those brief rare moments where happiness in its purest form can be tasted, before the world goes dark again.

Kristel once told me that depression and happiness is overrated. The only thing we should strive for, she said, is calm. I guess you can say that last night, I was the calmest I’ve been in a while. Calm is good. It’s just staying in the moment, accepting things as they come without angsting about how things should be better, blah blah blah. Because no matter how much you wish things were better, they’re not. So you might as well just go with the flow, acknowledge whatever it is you’re feeling, and keep walking that long dark hallway towards the light. The yellow glow of the lamps is very very pretty.