don't do it baby

I wrote a song that I titled "mistake"


     today I was making some food and listening to the 90's channel on the ole TV. a song called "water runs dry" came on and I instantly remembered the last day of 8th grade when I was walking home with my old yellow Sony Walkman that had the rubber seal inside so it was "water resistant". I remember listening to that song and thinking it was a pretty damn good song. I remember feeling shitty about not really seeing my friends anymore, because I would be going to a different high school than everyone else next year. I remember the girls. like always.
     I remembered JR, or Julie as I later found out her name was, and how we held hands one day near the end of the school year and almost, almost became boyfriend and girlfriend.

     I stood in the kitchen now, cooking my ramen noodles and left over food from weeks ago and thought about how that song still makes me sigh when it comes on and even say out loud that it's a good song.

     I wrote a song called "mistake" many, many years later...



I fell in love
with an idea of you
that I built from all the ruins
of all of the hearts I destroyed before you

the scars on my heart
spell out your name
I tried to help you knowing you wont change
not for anything in my world

I think we're making a big mistake baby
I think that you've got it wrong

I think we're making a big mistake
I think that you've got it wrong

you know there's nothing
I wanna hear from you
you're broken, running off to someone new
and it's no use
your guilt looked best dressed up like me

I think we're making a big mistake baby
I think that you've got it wrong

I think we're making a big mistake
I think that you've got it wrong

and you're still coming 'round
but the drug's just not the same
while we're stuck trading blame
piercing lies we became
and I don't wanna know
what's goin' on in your mind
while all these dreams are dying
fate has won over time

I think we're making a big mistake baby
I think that you've got it wrong...


     that song is a bout a girl I was dating around that time. I don't remember where I actually wrote it but looking through my old music books I can say that it wasn't the song I set out to write in the first place. I took the chorus part from a song I never finished and wrote a whole new song around it.

     my inspiration was that old boyz II men song that still makes me reminisce when I hear it, and a beatles song called "let it be".

     I just happened to fall in love with something I had in my own head and not the girl that was in front of me. I wanted her to be something she wasn't. but when it ended, I didn't want it to either. I am resistant to change sometimes. and sometimes I want to smash everything I own.

     the line "I think we're making a big mistake baby" comes from the line "we'll make the biggest mistake of our lives... don't do it baby" in the boyz II men song.

     I imagine the last line (while all these dreams are dying, fate has won over time) as the last argument in the plea to stay. we're talking and the world we have built around us is crashing down slowly while all along time has already run out but no one wants to admit it first.

 
     so my song was inspired by an old r&b classic that I still hold dear.

"...don't do it baby"