Lost My Head

A Lo-Fi Valentine

One minute you’re a little kid, the next you’ve lost your head.

Faux Support Crew,

Let me thank you for being here reading this presently.

It means a lot.

And thanks for continuing to listen to these tunes.¹

The song that I am adding to the “Mixed Up Files” today is called “Lost My Head.”

Listen to it here as an mp3:

Listen to it as a wav in this here Bandcamp player:

This song was recorded using a very hot microphone² back in 1997 on my beloved Tascam 4 track machine.

I mixed this song onto a Maxell tape (along with a bunch of others at the time) and gave the mixtape to my crush at the time, Mel.³

The mixtape was called “A Lo-Fi Valentine.”

She later surprised me by having the tape I’d given her digitized and gifted me a CD version of these songs.

That is the version I’m sharing today, though I did go in and clean it up a bit in Adobe Audition.

---

I remember beginning to write this song in the back of the van when Steel Shank was on tour.

We were driving around Washington DC and I was obssessing on the main riff in the back seat.

I couldn’t stop playing it.

When we got back to Minneapolis, I cranked out several demos of this song, trying to shape it nice.

Eventually, we got into the studio to record this song with Mike Wisti⁴, but it didn’t get released under the Steel Shank banner, because Steel Shank broke up and then morphed into my next rock performance group, The Spring Collection.

Poster for the CD release show of Aquarius where “Lost My Head” first appeared.

So did I really lose my head?

And if, as I keep insisting in the song, “that I don’t want to talk about it,” why do I want to “talk about it” now?

This is me circa ‘99 in the van where I wrote “Lost My Head.” It generally smelled powerfully of buring oil in this machine.

What you talkin’ ‘bout Willis?

I remember finishing college in 1991 and being pretty sure that I was going to die.

The AIDS epidemic was a very real thing, and I’d been compelled to visit a free clinic following a broken condom incident in ‘87.

A friend from work died of AIDS. One of my best friends nearly died in a bike accident and wound up with a life-altering head injury.

People were dying for real!

Surely death was coming for me.

Surely I deserved to die.

Surely I was a bad person.

What a wild motivator fear of death can be.

In the van photo above, I am about to embark on a road trip after telling my boss I needed to get away for a while.

I never went back.⁵

I remain your humble servant,

OX&C,

Faux Jean

Here are the Lyrics:

LOST MY HEAD

I lost my head but I don't want to talk about it
I lost my way but I don't want to discuss it
You're hanging around and you're making my life a mess
And everyone is an accomplice

I don't expect from you
I don't expect a thing
All I know is I don't want to talk about it
Let's not talk about it (gibberish)

I lost my head but I don't want to talk about it
I look at the wall and I just want to shout at it
You tell me to do this and I just want to quit it
You tell me I'm a malcontent just a little misfit

I don't expect from you
I don't want a thing
Maybe some peace and quiet
A couple of other things
All I know is I don't want to talk about it
Let's not talk about it
I don't want to talk about it

I lost my head but I don't want to talk about it
I lost my way but I don't want to discuss it
You're hanging around and you're making my life a mess
And everyone is an accomplice


I don't expect from you
I don't want a thing
Maybe some peace and quiet
A couple of other things
All I know is I don't want to talk about it
Let's not talk about it
I don't want to eat
I don't want to sleep
I don't want to talk about it
We should talk about it
What you talkin' 'bout Willis?

1. I am determined to get this newsletter out before I have to pick up the kids from school and so apologize if it seems a little rushed at the end.

2. And buzzy guitars plugged directly into the machine!

3. I gave her this tape thinking it might make her like me more.

4. Of Albatross Studios / Rank Strangers / Veto Records fame.

5. Therapy helps.