Dear Living Fauxs,
Death.
Who wants to hear a pop song about death?
Not many folks do, it would seem.
And yet, here I am, presenting this little ditty, just in time for the holidays.
This version of Deathbed/Epitaph was committed to tape on January 26, 2004, in my apartment at 1728 Lake Street in Minneapolis.
Have a listen here in the player:
I remember being at Flowers Studio in 2002 working on Dead Lover and coming up with these chords and really wanting to track them there.
But that was not to be.
This song got the fancy-studio-full-band treatment on Light it Up / Burn it Down, released in 2006.1
I was a pretty happy-go-lucky schmuck until 1991 when I became convinced that I was going to die.2
I kept living, but I never stopped thinking about Death as the original conspiracy.
I love and embrace philosophies that tell us that we must accept death as a natural part of the human life cycle.
But I still get the heebie-jeebies when I really think about it.
Here’s to our continued health and vibrancy!
I remain your humble servant,
OX&C,
Faux Jean
Here are the lyrics:
deathbed, epitaph
time knows you’re a shadow
sweetly to sleep
the darkness comes in your dreams
and you are annulled
just as easily
as you were
conceived in hope that light might
cast a shadow
and so be seen
by the first light when last shining
and you are annulled
just as easily as you were
deceived by hope
what your shadow doesn’t know
won’t hurt you
deathbed, epitaph
time knows you’re a shadow
Recorded at Albatross Studios in South Minneapolis.
This was during the AIDS epidemic and I’d contracted an STD, but was not tested for HIV, and so spiralled to the worst conclusion.