Don’t Forsake Me, Oh My Darling
Okay, here’s an embarrassing little anecdote: Around the time of this recording, I went through a brief phase wherein I had decided to change my surname from Spiegelhalter, which undeniably sucks, to Dvorak, which is just silly. In retrospect, going from a name with thirteen letters to one with an unrepresented zh sound is not a trade up (although it does look cool). But I had Big Plans of moving out to California and getting my musical career on the road, so to speak, and I couldn’t do it with a name like Spiegelhalter, could I? Surely not. So I filed the papers to legally change my name, got a court date and everything... and then the court date arrived and I blew it off. Story of my life, really. The same fate would ultimately become of the trip to California itself, but that’s a different story. No, it’s the same story actually.
In the months leading up to the name change, I started using "Ron Dvorak" in my creative endeavors, the title of this collection being one of the few surviving examples. The downside being that it will always serve as a reminder of my bizarre folly – the upside being that it sounds unquestionably better than Digital Spiegelhalter.
Digital Dvorak is mostly a collection of remakes of material from my first four albums. Eric Simon was the first person I knew with any sort of digital recording device; in this case, a portable DAT. Since the Holy Perfection Of Ones And Zeros had finally been handed down to man from on high, I thought it might be a good idea to revisit some earlier recordings, fix what needed to be fixed, and master it digitally. Simply being able to say the recording was "Digitally Mastered" was all the incentive I needed. Eric was kind enough to let me use the DAT (on the condition I also make for him an extensive Zappa mix, which I did), and I was on my way.
Let me briefly touch on the California story so as not to leave that thread hanging. I felt I had honed my songwriting to the point where I could make a go of it on the West Coast. I was to make this cross-country trip in a 1970 Volkswagen Super Beetle just as the snow was beginning to hit the Midwest and the Rockies. I was to stay with a friend of a friend who was rumored to have said she’d be happy to help me out, but to whom I had never spoken personally, and whose commitment to the plan seemed less and less verifiable as my departure date approached. On top of all that, I probably had about $300 to my name. If this seems like a recipe for disaster, I’m sure it would have been. Fortunately we’ll never know. When the day came, each of the friends I was sharing a house with at the time left for work or school or wherever they had to be that day, and we exchanged our fond farewells. Take care, remember to write, all that good stuff. And of course when they came home later that day, I was still there. I got a restaurant job, moved into my own apartment, and that was the end of my adventures in California. And my last name was still Spiegelhalter.
written by Ron Moses
3:46 • right-click to download: mp3 (4.9 MB) FLAC (24.0 MB)
Maggie was a cat. (No, I have no idea if she was ever on a hot tin roof, but thank you for asking.) A few years before moving into the communal hippie house in Madbury (which you'll read about when you get to the ...yeah, whatever... album), a bunch of the same friends lived in a communal hippie apartment in Newington. I didn’t live there, but I did hang there often. Maggie was one of the house pets.
Bob, who lived there at the time, does not have a history of love for cats in general. He likes them even less when they knock one of his delicate glass figurines off a shelf and sends it shattering to the hardwood floor (we shan’t linger on the point that Bob possessed delicate glass figurines, okay?). Such was Bob’s uncontrollable rage that he grabbed Maggie, lifted her to his face and screamed at her. This had the expected effect of scaring the shit out of her. Quite literally, in fact; she loosed her bowels in terror as Bob held her aloft. Bad enough that she destroyed his precious, but now he had to rush her at arm’s length through the apartment to the litter box, trailing chocolate soft-serve the entire way. It was the funniest twenty seconds I’ve ever witnessed. Crash, swear, grab, scream, shit, run. Good times, good times. I’m sure it did absolutely nothing for Bob’s opinion of cats.
That "heavy metal" break after the second verse is a bit too close to a riff in Primus’s "Jerry Was A Race Car Driver," in retrospect. I plead the George Harrison defense on that one, but the second break is quite good. With the exception of my desire to rewrite that first break, this strikes me as a very satisfying piece of work.
This song was originally written for ...yeah, whatever... in 1993. This version sounds like it’s only a remix; I don’t think I re-recorded anything. I did repair one thing in the last verse: The original track's vocal cut in at "Maggie" without the preceding "Oh." That wasn’t intentional; I just punched that track back in too late when I was mixing it. Apparently I had decided it sounded okay that way. (Read: I was too lazy to go back and mix it again.) That’s been corrected here.
Oh Maggie, you know
I’m not as mad as I was an hour ago
And if you’d just sit down I’d like to let you know
I’m so so sorry, Maggie
‘Cause Maggie, you see
I’m not as stable as I know I should be
But when it comes to you, something comes over me
I hope you can see that, Maggie
Oh Maggie, my dear
You say you love me but that’s not what I hear
I get the feeling that I’m someone you fear
I hope you can hear me, Maggie
‘Cause Maggie, you see
I’m not as normal as I know I should be
It doesn’t make me bad, it just makes me me
I hope you can see that, Maggie
Oh Maggie, you know
I’m not as mad as I was an hour ago
And if you’d just shut up I’d like to let you know
I’m so so sorry
And I didn’t mean to tell you to shut up, but you know how I am
And I’m so sorry, Maggie
Ron Moses • vocal, acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, programming
written by Ron Moses
3:22 • right-click to download: mp3 (4.3 MB) FLAC (20.3 MB)
This was originally on Musaic in 1990. This one’s always been really popular, for reasons that elude me. There’s really not much to it beyond the obvious double entendre of the title (if you don't get it, don't worry about it). Once that joke’s over, it’s just a repetitive folk tune like any other. On Musaic, I played it way too fast. Here, I play it at the right tempo, but screw it up by laying a solo guitar over the whole thing. A few years later, on Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, I would play it way too slow. So with a track record like that, you can understand why people like this song so much.
I'm reasonably certain this is complete re-record from the ground up. It’s definitely a better tempo, but I do think it was a mistake to add the second guitar; it’s a distraction. That aside, this is probably the best of the three versions of this song.
I need a bag
I’d forgotten how much stuff I have
And none of it’s worth anything
But I know that I can’t live without any of it
So I need a bag
Got a hat that I wear when it rains on my head
Got a sandwich I made from some mustard and bread
Got an old broken lock and a key to unlock it
But I can’t keep it all in my pocket
So I need a bag
I’d forgotten how much stuff I have
And none of it’s worth anything
But I know that I can’t live without any of it
So I need a bag
Got a book that I read while the sky is still light
Got a candle I burn when it darkens at night
Got a two-day supply and a seventeen-weeker
But I can’t keep it all in my sneaker
So I need a bag
I’d forgotten how much stuff I have
And none of it’s worth anything
But I know that I can’t live without any of it
So I need a bag
Got a new yellow shirt and an old hand-me-down
Got a bike I can ride if my car should break down
Got a thing that I found, I forget what you call it
But I can’t keep it all in my wallet
So I need a bag
I’d forgotten how much stuff I have
And none of it’s worth anything
But I know that I can’t live without any of it
So I need a bag
Got a name, got a voice
Got a will, got a way
Got a rock, got a stick, got a rag
And I need a bag
Ron Moses • vocal, acoustic guitar
written by Ron Moses
2:09 • right-click to download: mp3 (2.8 MB) FLAC (14.0 MB)
Originally recorded for Musaic in 1990, and recorded a third time in 1999 for what would have become Vulva. I have to assume this version was all re-recorded from scratch; there’s no way I would still have had the original tracks from Musaic at this point. The drums and bass are still the same sequencer track, though. This is an improvement over the original (I’d learned about the judicious use of vocal reverb, apparently), but the third version is way better than this.
My dear Heather
I think I might have to hurt you
It’s beginning to look as though I might have to kill you
I told you time and time again
Don’t you mess around with any other men
Never again
My dear Heather
My dear Heather
Don’t bother going for the telephone
I’ve already cut the wires and now we’re all alone
I told you once, I told you twice
That it isn’t very nice to make a fool out of me
Now you’re gonna see
My dear Heather
I always knew you’d take me to the cleaners
If I filed for divorce
But I’ll be a thousand miles away
By the time they find your corpse
My dear Heather
My dear Heather
You’re never getting out of that box, my dear
It’s nailed and Crazy Glued
Not to mention the locks, my dear
I know you must not have much air
And there’s not much room in there
To go messing around
Six feet underground
My dear Heather
My dear Heather
My dear Heather
My dear Heather
My dead Heather
Ron Moses • vocal, acoustic guitar, keyboards, programming
written by Ron Moses
4:07 • right-click to download: mp3 (4.8 MB) FLAC (25.2 MB)
The final installment in the ongoing saga of Grebish Dwelling, patron saint of wasted youth. What? Don't worry about it, I'll explain later. This has some pretty cool things in it, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. The faux-oboe solo is good stuff.
I believe this is just a remix of the track that appeared on ...yeah, whatever... in 1993. A/B-ing these tracks is really depressing – the tapes of the original albums are so deteriorated. You'll hear just how bad they are when I get the earlier albums online. So look forward to that, won't you?
[instrumental]
Ron Moses • electric guitar, keyboards, programming
written by Ron Moses
3:04 • right-click to download: mp3 (3.7 MB) FLAC (18.9 MB)
This was the first of a small handful of tracks wherein I would attempt to be The Doors. Upon seeing Oliver Stone's film, my mind was sufficiently blown that I found myself deep in a Doors/Jim Morrison phase for about a year, up until the point I realized they’re really boring. This track’s not too bad... a little heavy-handed in the lyrics department (ya think?), but the tune is decent enough. Bad guitar solo, yes, but you’d better get used to that. This is hardly the worst of them.
This is quite different from the original version recorded for The Wish List in 1991. I’ve selected a different "tack piano" sound, reduced the reverb on the instrumental track, and wisely added an acoustic guitar. I played the same lame-ass solo, though. I guess I played it a little better, but still.
Red blood on the walls in Baghdad
Don’t you cry
Old man scrounging through old garbage
Don’t you cry
It’s a beautiful day
What a wonderful thing to be able to say
White sheets with a splash of crimson
Don’t you cry
Young man locked away in prison
Don’t you cry
It’s a beautiful day
What a wonderful thing to be able to say
Blue suits with a taste for violence
Don’t you cry
Small child left a starving orphan
Don’t you cry
It’s a beautiful day
What a wonderful thing to be able to say
Ron Moses • vocal, acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, programming
written by Ron Moses
3:28 • right-click to download: mp3 (4.5 MB) FLAC (23.6 MB)
I have no idea if anyone but me ever liked this song. Anyone but I? Anyone but me? Whichever it is, I have no idea if that. But I did, and still do. The lyrics are a bit clunky, could use some polish, but there are a few great lines, I think. I don’t believe this was inspired by anything specific, just a general sense of dissatisfaction with myself, and the feeling that the right person could provide me with the motivation I needed to change. With that in mind, I’d like to retroactively dedicate this song to my wife, Michelle. It was only after I met her that this chorus became something I was actually living.
Originally recorded for Musaic in 1990, the most significant change here is the addition of the piano. I’m not sure if it’s an improvement or not. (I don't play, can you tell?) I raised the key quite a bit, too. I think that was wise, though I could have taken another run at the vocal. It really needs some harmonies in the chorus... maybe some day.
I’m a man of little virtue and I’ll freely admit it
I’ve rarely opened up my mouth except to stick my foot in it
I’ve never done anyone wrong ‘cept for everyone I’ve ever loved
And I tend to back down whenever push comes to shove
I’m a man of little wisdom and I’ll freely admit it
Sure I’ve got a half a brain but I haven’t got a clue what to do with it
I’ve never done anything wrong ‘cept for everything I’ve ever done
And when love looks my way, I always jump the gun
So I need your love to help me change
I need a little push to help me turn the page
I need your eyes to help me see
I need your smile to help me be
The man you want me to be
I’m a man of little substance and I’ll freely admit it
It’s gettin’ deeper everywhere but I don’t care just so long as I’m not standin’ in it
I’ve never done anything for no one ‘cept for everything I’ve done for myself
And if vanity were gold, by now I’d be a man of great wealth
So I need your love to help me change
I need a little push to help me turn the page
I need your eyes to help me see
I need your smile to help me be
The man you want me to be
I’m a man of little morals and I’ll freely admit it
I’d go out stealin’ candy bars from little babies if I thought that there was money in it
I’ve never stabbed a friend in the back ‘cept for every friend I’ve ever known
And all my kid gloves, I’ve conveniently outgrown
So I need your love to help me change
I need a little push to help me turn the page
I need your eyes to help me see
I need your smile to help me be
The man you want me to be
Oh, I need your love to help me change
I need a little push to help me turn the page
I need your eyes to help me see
I need your smile to help me be
The man you want me to be
Ron Moses • vocal, acoustic guitar, keyboards, programming
written by Ron Moses
3:43 • right-click to download: mp3 (4.7 MB) FLAC (23.3 MB)
Every greatest hits album (which I suppose I conceived this to be) has one brand-new track they put on there to inject a little excitement to what is essentially a bunch of crap everyone’s heard already. This one is no exception.
"Ned" was a big experiment for me. I improvised the sax melody into the sequencer with no idea as to what I was going to do with it. I then spent the next few days figuring that out. I was in over my head as far as how to handle the underlying chord structure, but I poked around until I found things that worked, and I think I did okay. Once I had the opening part mapped out, I let the track go where it wanted to go without any thought about how I’d get back to the beginning. This was not how I was accustomed to doing things. Most of my tunes are clearly structured with few surprises, and they're oh so exciting for it.
There’s another version of "Ned" coming up that is a significant improvement over this.
[instrumental]
Ron Moses • keyboards, programming
written by Ron Moses
4:36 • right-click to download: mp3 (5.9 MB) FLAC (30.9 MB)
Oddly enough, a number of people liked this song. In retrospect, I don’t get why. First of all, what’s with that opening jam? Completely out of place, and very lame. Could I have ripped off the drum intro to Rush’s "Force Ten" any more blatantly? I think not. Second, I’m clearly aping Tears for Fears’s "Sowing the Seeds of Love" here, and not doing a very good job of it. Third, that big high note at the end: "...to a hole in the SUUUUUUNNNN!!!" is just sad, dude, seriously. The section it goes into would be promising if I could solo, but I couldn’t and still can’t, so bleh. I guess I have forgiving friends (an understatement if there ever was one). Frankly, it’s a better poem than it is a song. And it’s not a very good poem. And poetry is bullshit anyway.
This first appeared on The Wish List in 1991. As for this do-over... who knew I could make this suck more? That opening guitar solo: eek! Painful. That ending guitar solo: had I not been introduced to the concept of take two? The rhythm guitar is probably an improvement, though. It does give it a fuller sound. But it’s just such a bad, stupid piece of music, I can’t imagine why I ever recorded it, much less re-recorded it. Can we move on?
Knock on the door with a roar and a man with a tan comes and answers the call through the wall and he asks with a drawl, you recall, he inquires, "Have you ever been experienced?"
"No I can’t say that I have," and you laugh and you laugh but the guy doesn’t buy your reply and he thinks and he winks and your confidence shrinks as he asks, "How would you like to be?"
In a strange house at a strange party
With strange party-goers wearing strange clothes
And your hands begin to shake
Quaking to the earth’s revolution in a spiral eclipse
And you walk in the place with disgrace on your face and you see other folks telling jokes, taking pokes at the whens and the wheres of affairs, taking care not to be too inconspicuous
The man with a tan has a glass in his hand and he hands you the drink and you blink as you think that you’ve been here before in a war, yet you forget to be inconsiderate
In a strange house at a strange party
With strange party-goers wearing strange clothes
And your arms begin to flail
Sailing on the cool blue neon in a vertical light
And the corner contorts and aborts your retorts as you try to believe you receive what you leave, all the dust and the rust and you try to adjust and you find it quite inconceivable
Handing the reins to the pains in your brains as the chains fall like rain and you strain to be sane yet the words that you’ve heard fly like birds, so absurd, you ask yourself, "How did I get here?"
In a strange house at a strange party
With strange party-goers wearing strange clothes
And your mind begins to fly
Sighing like a breeze on a mountain to a hole in the sun
Ron Moses • vocal, electric guitar, keyboards, programming
written by Ron Moses
4:18 • right-click to download: mp3 (5.2 MB) FLAC (26.4 MB)
Ready to play "Name That Influence"? For 50 points, here’s your clue: Your mother should know what Beatles tune I’m aping on this track... anyone? Anyone?
The point of this, besides ripping off Paul McCartney’s entire modus operandi, was to attempt to create a melody so catchy it would actually piss people off. I don’t know if I succeeded, but I’d like to think that someone somewhere found it as obnoxiously cloying as I intended it to be. I’m sure the fake children’s chorus only helped.
Aside from the novelty of that effort, there’s not much to this one. The lyrics are woefully clunky; they need a major rewrite, to say the least. I was still stuck in my habit of writing lyrics that expressed the full list of bullet points I wanted to get across, but failed to consider whether they sounded at all musical. I’d get over that eventually. Sort of.
When this first appeared on ...yeah, whatever... in 1993, there was a brief instrumental track titled "piano contraption #1" that led into this rather nicely. I can’t imagine why I didn’t include that intro track with this version; that was the best part! It sounds like I recorded a new vocal. You wouldn’t even be able to tell except that the ramblings in the outro are different.
All of a sudden I’m losing my mind
Though my friends tell me that they’ve seen it coming for quite some time
Oh, how can that be?
I still feel like me
Naturally
All of a sudden I’m acting real weird
Though my friends tell me that that is exactly what they have feared
Oh, I don’t understand
I’m doing the best that I can
Maybe I’ll feel better in the morning
Maybe I’ll feel better for a couple hours of snoring
Maybe then the voices in my head will go away
The things that they say make me this way
All of a sudden I’m going insane
Though my friends tell me that, all things considered, they can’t complain
Seems they like me this way
That’s what they say
I guess that’s okay
All of a sudden I’m locked in a room
Though my friends tell me that that is no reason for doom and gloom
I’ve got a TV So I can see people like me
La-de-da Da-de-da Da-de-da-dum
La-de-da Da-de-da Da-de-da Da-da-da
Da-da-dum
Da-de-da-de-da-dum
La-de-da-dum
La-de-da Da-de-da Da-de-da-dum
La-de-da Da-de-da Da-de-da Da-da-da
Da-da-dum
Da-de-da-de-da-dum
La-de-da-da-da...
Ron Moses • vocal, electric guitar, keyboards, programming
written by Ron Moses
5:21 • right-click to download: mp3 (7.0 MB) FLAC (34.6 MB)
I'm kind of surprised it took me ten tracks to get around to representing the 1992 Disguising Godiva album. This song is me being just about done with the idea of living in Boston. It’s a great place to visit, it’s probably even a great place to live if you can afford it, which I could not once my apartment-mate said "see ya, freak" and left me with a $680/month lease (in 1992 dollars). But it was not a great place for me to live at that time. I was drowning there, mostly in bourbon but in other ways as well, and my view of the city was not at its sunniest. I should have been seeing Boston through the eyes of a semi-educated young man with the world at his fingertips. Instead I saw it through the eyes of a stumbling night-walker, and from that point of view it’s all crack whores and foul T-stop air and grimy concrete and graffiti and desperation and paranoia. Clearly it was time to get somewhere healthy while I still could. Fortunately I did.
This song is not too bad, and this version is a slight improvement over the original. I don't remember doing it, but apparently I changed a line of lyrics in this version, which is good because I always hated the original line. So that's good. The obvious flaw in both versions is the vocal. Those falsetto notes are really quite nasty. I think with a slight key adjustment I could do it better now (see "Baby Cup" on the Odds and Ends page) but there’s no need. "My Time To Fly" was relevant to my life once, but no longer. Can I get an "amen" on that?
I walked into a room with a view
Of the loneliest sights on a Saturday night
Void of emotion, a dimly lit ocean
Of predators, victims, and petty addictions
I met a girl just like you
She shot me a wink and she bought me a drink
She sat herself down, put her hand on my thigh,
Licked her lips and said,
"What I need now is a friend, not a guy."
My time to fly
And I don’t need to let you know why
My time to fly
Flying so high
Trudging through pity, it’s night in the city
Working girls, red lights, and lonely men’s headlights
A man in four-door finds what he’s looking for
And pulls the car over to the boulevard shoulder
I saw a girl looked like you
She bent to the window, a vision in day-glo
He opened the door and he let her climb in
And they drove off to some unknown somewhere that I’ve never been
My time to fly
And I don’t need to let you know why
My time to fly
Flying so high
Me and my best friend hung out for the weekend
We stayed up 'til dawn, 'til the bourbon was gone
Sunday in Dover, the weekend was over
I stepped from her stair into November air
I saw a man just like me
His eyes were deranged, and he begged me for change
I shrugged as I turned up my collar and turned down my eyes
I said I was sorry and kept walking by
My time to fly
And I don’t need to let you know why
My time to fly
Flying so high
Ron Moses • vocal, acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, programming
written by Ron Moses/Michelle Bolduc
4:41 • right-click to download: mp3 (6.1 MB) FLAC (30.7 MB)
Another 1992 Disguising Godiva track. I was living a desperate and depressed existence in Boston at the time, and in an effort to introduce some kind of healthy happiness into my life, I ended up dating a girl named Michelle Bolduc for approximately 48 hours. She was very nice, and we got along well, but it was clear to us both that we weren’t meant for romance. And by that I mean "it was clear to her that I wasn’t meant for romance." We did, however, strike up a brief but meaningful friendship once we agreed (and by that I mean "she decided") it wasn’t going to work out. Yeah, it was for the best. I'll tell you more about that some day when I get the DG album uploaded. It's the least of my personal horror stories, believe me.
Anyway... at the end of our first date she shared with me some poetry she’d written; and as strong an aversion as I have to poetry in general, I’m not stupid. This one grabbed me in particular, not necessarily because it was great, but because I thought I could make a song out of it. So the first verse is her poem, and the second is my addition.
I really enjoy the intro to this tune, it’s got a lot of good things in it. It’s primarily inspired by Dweezil Zappa’s "The Pirate Song," although they don’t sound that much alike. There’s probably a bit of Trevor Rabin’s intro to "Make It Easy" in there, too. The little hiccup as it segues into the first verse is one of my favorite moments in the entire catalog.
And then the verse melody is fine, but good gravy I completely ruined everything with that outro! I can’t believe I thought that was even remotely appropriate to this piece of music. This tune really deserved better. I’m sorry, tune. I feel like I let you down.
Hard to tell what’s been redone here. The vocal, definitely. I don’t hear an acoustic in the opening section (the original had one, I'm pretty sure), and I appear to have recorded a new electric guitar track. Apart from that, nothing much has changed.
Blood
A single drop
An unseen scar
A tear
A single drop
An unheard cry
A rip, a tug, a gouge
In my single heart
Feel my pain
See my scars
Wipe my tears
But please don’t just walk away -Michelle Bolduc
No
A single word
A silent plea
I know
A single word
Could be the death of me
A pain, a need, a hunger
In my single heart
Feed my soul
Hold my hand
Hear my words
But please don’t just walk away
No please don’t just walk away
‘Cause I can’t stay here on my own
‘Cause I can’t stay here all alone
‘Cause I can’t feel this way forever
And ever
And ever
Ron Moses • vocal, electric and acoustic guitars, keyboards, programming
written by Ron Moses
5:19 • right-click to download: mp3 (6.0 MB) FLAC (29.5 MB)
Sit back, kids, it’s story time. If you ever had any respect for me as a human being, you're about to lose it. It's time for the Adria story. Deep breath.
Back in my first semester at UConn, I shared a dorm room with my good friend Geoff, who I’d known since high school and with whom I’d been through thick and thin. Geoff had a girlfriend named Adria. And here’s where things get wacky because, you see, I secretly wanted Adria to be my girlfriend. I was super-hot for Adria. But of course, that was never going to be an option, for two reasons: The obvious, obviously, and also the fact that getting her would require telling her how I felt about her, and telling her how I felt about her would require courage, and if courage were made of arms I’d be the Venus de Milo. So my longing was to remain a secret. (Secret longings are a bit of a recurring theme during these years. More about that later.)
So one day, Adria came to our dorm room to see Geoff, who wasn’t there at the time. Instead, she asked me to deliver a note to him upon his return. And like any good friend would, I tucked the note away with no desire to know its contents. NOT! I read that fucker the second she rounded the corner... oh my God, it was a break-up letter! They were through! So like any good friend would, I resolved to offer a sympathetic shoulder to cry on should either of them need one, but otherwise keep a respectful, appropriate distance. Yeah, RIGHT! I saw an opportunity and said, "Friendship be DAMNED!!!" I literally ran to her dorm, ready to pour my heart out to her, telling her all the secret feelings I’d kept inside for so long. Then, realizing I’d never go through with it if I had to actually face her, I asked someone in the hall for a piece of paper, wrote it all down, slipped it under her door, and scampered away as fast as I could. So brave, so manly! Anyway, I offered her my heart, and, much to my surprise and great delight, my offer was accepted. This, as many friends pointed out to me at the time, should have raised a huge red flag.
In fact, almost every mutual friend of Adria’s and mine sat me down within 24 hours of the word getting around, and tried desperately to alert me to the fact that I was being played like a dime-store kazoo (only in a figurative sense, not in the much more exciting literal sense, though that would make for a better story, no?). The only reason she was with me, they told me – each and every one of them – was to make Geoff so jealous he’d crawl back to her on his hands and knees. I would have none of that talk, for I was IN LOVE at last and this time it was REAL. Those guys just didn’t understand. God what an idiot, not to mention a back-stabbing scumbag.
And so Adria and I walked the campus together, hand-in-hand, giggling cutely to each other, Geoff looking on dejectedly all the while. Yes, we were a couple, bonded by love. For two whole days.
To her credit, she did not ask someone in my hall for a piece of paper; she actually came to me and told me face-to-face that she had taken Geoff back. I was devastated in exactly the fashion I always expected I’d be if I ever worked up the courage to tell a girl what I felt about her, only multiply that by about twelve. It was as if God Himself looked down on me and said psych!, and it warped my emotional outlook for years to come. I couldn’t believe it, my debilitating cowardice had been right all along! In that moment I was slapped in the face by a truth that would dominate my worldview for years: All women is bitches. No, I’m kidding. It really did mess me up, though. Turns out all those friends who’d come to warn me were right after all. One of them actually used the words, "I told you so." Ain’t that a kick in the fuckin’ head? You just don’t do that, man, it’s like a rule. But it did teach me that my long-standing policy of never telling a woman how I felt about her was the correct one. It should have taught me you don’t mess around with your best friend’s girlfriend or else karma will kick you directly in the nuts, but then that would be a meaningful learning experience, and we can’t have that.
I did make my humble apologies to Geoff, who was gracious enough to accept them, and against all odds it actually strengthened our friendship. We’d been through a series of events that would drive most friends apart forever, but we had worked it out and moved on. I think that really meant something to the both of us. About two weeks later, I was playing an open-mic night at a coffee house on campus, and Geoff joined me on stage. We performed a special song I had written especially for that evening titled "Adria" – Geoff sang the lead while I played guitar and sang harmony. Several of our friends were in attendance, and every jaw dropped. Especially Adria’s. It was a beautiful thing.
So that’s the Adria story, more or less, and I told you all that so I could tell you this: When Adria heard this song a few months later, word got back to me that she'd said it scared her to death. I thought that was awesome. Best review I ever got. And the most awesome part of all is: I wrote it about a year prior to the aforementioned events – it’s not even about her. Didn’t Carly Simon do a song about that? Why yes, I believe she did. But it’s nice to have an impact on people’s lives, don’t you think?
So if it’s not about Adria, who is it about? Nobody, really. I stole the title from an episode of The Prisoner. I believe they stole it from an old cowboy song. I liked the title, and the rest of the story flowed from there. That it fit certain circumstances so closely is pure coincidence. It was intended to be humorous... I mean, read those lyrics. Who could take those seriously?
This track was originally on The Wish List, 1991. This version features new guitar (better), and new vocals (not so much). Yawn.
Don’t forsake me, oh my darling
Stay by my side
Once you leave me, soon you’ll grieve me
Sheer suicide
I know you don’t need me anymore
But I need you
I know I’ve served my purpose
But I’m not through with you
Don’t forsake me, oh my darling
Come share my bed
If you dismiss me, soon you’ll miss me
Once I am dead
I know you don’t want me anymore
Like I want you
I know you think it’s over
But I’ve got news for you
Don’t forsake me, oh my darling
Come take my hand
I would rather see you dead than
With some other man
I know you’d rather be far away
And on your own
I’ll go to meet my maker
But I won’t be alone
Ron Moses • vocal, acoustic guitar, keyboards, programming
written by Ron Moses
6:03 • right-click to download: mp3 (8.0 MB) FLAC (34.3 MB)
I left Boston in the Spring of ’92 and took a kitchen job out on Block Island, which is a few miles off the coast of Rhode Island. Kind of a smaller-scale Martha’s Vineyard, but passionately non-corporatized (you will not find a Starbucks on Block Island, but you will find Juice ‘n’ Java, sponsors of the most pathetic softball team on the island). That summer was very good for me. I got tanned, I got healthier than I’d been in years (I was still drinking and so forth, but that aspect of my life became way more realistic in scope and scale, and far more socially integrated, than it had been in Boston, where I was truly pathetic), I was in a beautiful environment with friends I’d known for years and I was bordering on happy. I still wasn’t having any luck with the female population, but that was to be expected. In my time on the island, the most complimentary thing said about me by a female, as related back to me by a mutual friend, was: "Ron’s a really great guy. I wish I was into guys like him." There’s something cosmically wrong with a statement like that. But I guess you take your compliments where you can get ‘em. Then there was the girl who accepted my invitation to dinner, but somehow didn’t realize it was a "date" until I tried to kiss her at the end of the night. I managed to tag half-a-lip’s worth of hastily-turned cheek, at which point she panicked and literally ran away. (And yes, I am using the word "literally" correctly, thank you, and also the words "ran" and "away.") So sad. Do I have "Just A Friend" tattooed on my forehead or something? Do I give off a special pheromone that triggers a false positive on the typical female’s gaydar? Of course I’m happily — ecstatically — married now, but back in the day I simply did not register in the female mind. At least it seemed that way to me. But before I digress overly, on with the story...
One night I went out clubbing with some friends, and some friends of those friends. One of those friends of friends was a pleasant but not at all attractive woman who, at closing time, offered to give me a lift back to my room. Okay, get ready to learn just how clueless a young man I was. Ready? I thought, "Gee, that’s awfully nice of her, I’d love a ride home." When we got there, I didn’t want to be rude, so I asked if [name long since forgotten] wanted to hang out for a while. I’m thinking we’d listen to some music, play some cards, whatever. I was just being polite, really. She said, "Well if we’re gonna hang out we should do it at my place," and abruptly swung the car around and out of the parking lot. Okay, I thought. I guess we’re hanging out at her place. My room is pretty small anyway; I don’t even have a TV. So we get to her place, and after about two hours of watching old Dick Van Dyke Show reruns on Nickelodeon, she decides she’s not waiting for me any longer and pounces on me. One moment I’m watching Rob Petrie trip over that damn Ottoman again (hey, he stepped around it that time, cool!), and the next thing I know I’ve got a mouthful of "ashtray tongue." Ummmm... oh. Oh! Wait a second, let me piece this together. She picked me up at a club, offered me a ride, and invited me back to her place... ah, okay, I get it now. Duh. Sorry about that, lady. Um, yeah, could you maybe not do that?
I’m going to refrain from telling the rest of the story, because it would be as embarrassing for you to hear as it would be for me to tell. Yes, even more embarrassing than the previous paragraph would suggest. And boring, really. I wasn’t attracted to her on any level, sexual or otherwise, but I was intrigued by the fact that she apparently wanted to be involved with parts of my body only my doctor and I had ever collaborated on. Was it just that she was desperate-slash-drunk enough to settle for me after all other attempts failed? I wasn’t sure. Probably. I had no interest in having any kind of relations with her, but it was an interesting if awkward experience.
And it inspired this song. It became clearer to me over the course of the summer that this sort of thing happened all the time, especially in a summer-only, no-strings-attached environment like Block Island. People hook up, have their fun, and go their separate ways. It was confusing to me, because I had been raised to think along the lines of respectful, chivalrous romance. The man courts the lady for, oh let’s say three to four months, and at some point the lady swoons or something, and he takes that as his cue to look longingly into her eyes and say, "Oh Penelope!," to which she replies, "Oh Beauregard!," and they kiss passionately as the string section swells in the moonlit background. The End. But in reality, people get drunk, walk up to each other and say, "Hey, wanna fuck?" and then they do and then sometimes they have breakfast but mostly not. The End. Nobody ever trained me to negotiate that particular transaction, or even bothered to tell me it existed. So yeah, clueless was I, like an alien who’s just landed on your strange planet with its barbaric customs and its impenetrable rituals (and females). So this song was my attempt to make sense of all that.
It never occurred to me until just now that this tune has a sort of George Harrison vibe going on. Listen to the end of the second verse, "Run from the pain and you lose the love"... hear it? Maybe it’s just the way I sing it, I don’t know. Speaking of singing, this is my very first vocal harmony. I remember Felice commenting on it at the listening party; I was glad someone noticed. Of course I could only afford to do it because there was so little instrumentation going on, so my four-track had tracks to spare. That wasn’t usually the case — with the drums and keyboard in stereo on tracks 1 & 2, and usually a guitar on track 3, that left only track 4 for vocals (I preferred to avoid ping-ponging whenever possible). So this was a luxury. Anyway, I think it came out okay.
This is the exact same recording that appears on ...yeah, whatever... (1993). I guess I just wanted to hear it digitally remastered. It would be completely digitally re-everythinged a few years later on Horseshoes and Hand Grenades.
Maybe if I had the time
Maybe if I had the peace of mind
Maybe I’d let myself fall for you
Maybe I’d let my true heart shine through
Summer is fading so fast
A piece of my life that I thought would last
Flying ‘cross the sky like a dove
Run from the pain and you lose the love
Island love
Not love at all
Only a pillow to cushion your fall
Island love
Not love at all
Or maybe it is after all
Wonder how it would have been
How deep a hole would my heart be in
Weigh the returns for the cost
It’s better, they say, to have loved and lost
Summer is fading so fast
Wake up tomorrow and blame the past
Settle for nothing or lose it all
Trade in my fear for a crystal ball
Island love
Not love at all
Only a pillow to cushion your fall
Island love
Not love at all
Or maybe it is after all
I have spent too much time thinking ‘bout this
So many chances that I may have missed
Promise myself it won’t happen again
Using both feet the next time I jump into that island love
Sifting the memories through
Memories of someone I hardly knew
Why lie to anyone else?
Spent enough time lying to myself
Summer grows back in the end
There’s always the chance that we’ll meet again
And if we do, then we’ll see
Maybe she’ll even remember me
Island love
Not love at all
Only a pillow to cushion your fall
Island love
Not love at all
Or maybe it is after all
Ron Moses • vocal, classical guitar
Flash mp3 player courtesy of 1 Pixel Out