I don't think I've ever had an album that straight-up has a song about this topic. Most albums have songs inspired by this, but whatever direct references to the event were present in said songs were scrubbed out.
From 2003 to 2006 I was friends with an unnamed person. I moved to another county in 2004, so we continued our friendship via phone. Since she had written messes expressing love and went as far as to show a public display of affection on the last day of school, I equated our friendship with a romance and claimed to most people that I had a girlfriend. In retrospect, it was more a phone friendship that went south really fast due to me not picking up on a bunch of context clues, i.e. her asking me to repeat a sentence with "can you repeat that" and me immediately raising my voice as if that's good phone etiquette; me constantly talking about the same 10 things on the phone, including movies I was into, folkloric creatures I was intrigued by, and Homestar Runner; and constantly calling her at very inopportune times.
Eventually the friendship fell apart. In 2011 we resumed said friendship, albeit with my personal caveat that I don't talk to her as much (also, we messed each other on YouTube, which wasn't really much of a social media platform even back then). I did, however, recommend several bands I thought she'd be interested in - these were mostly Zappa/Beefheart-adjacent or Zappa/Beefheart-inspired groups like Cardiacs. Eventually she grew tired of that and, like last time, our friendship fell apart.
The fact that I haven't written a direct song about this is kind of astounding. Maybe I tried to forget her, assuming "moving on" with the act of erasing her from my mind. But moving on to me means a different thing - to apply the lessons of the past so you don't repeat the same mistakes in the future. It's to make sense of what happened.
Honestly, at times I felt like I was being taken advantage of, like I was never going to be a full friend, that whatever I thought was cool was always going to have some level of blowback. Yeah, it feels bitter. It really does. But you can't get better without a spoonful of bitter medicine.
lyrics
I've been drifting in and out again
Listening to Morgan Simpson on "953" slowing down the pace
Skip a bit, "Of Schlagenheim," and I get another text
It's from her, the girl I didn't give any space
I called her all the time and went through all my lines
Stay on for half an hour, my brother had to pull me off
Stuck in a Homsar impression and inquiries of life
It's like she said six years ago, I should move the hell on
I'm at the party stapled to a tree
Don steps outside with cigarette and Genoveses me
We lie all of the time
Caught between the gears of perpetual motion
With no reason nor rhyme, watching Butt's Twelve by Pies
At your personal sugarphone sideshow...
(STAGE!)
Man, it was screwy when I couldn't handle her rejection
I wanted to play for her this very song I’ve toiled over
I know she was tired of my interjections
I blew out her hearing aid by singing songs of Pennzoil
Last I heard, we got in touch, and talked about the days
Send her a distant recommendation now and again
Even though I changed my tune, the tension was in place
The Cardiacs were her last straw, we haven't spoken since
I'm at the party, sinking Jengaships
Trying to speak my heart out, but nothing ever sticks
Locked inside my bit
We lie all of the time
Caught between the gears of perpetual motion
With no reason nor rhyme, watching Butt's Twelve by Pies
At your personal sugarphone sideshow...
(STAGE!)
It's such a let-down
To know your heroes who seemed cool to you
Are just more silly tools
That the bullshit made its one good point
The shit we waded through
It's such a let-down
When she's afraid of you
That was never my intention
I had to think it through
I’m the nuisance in her mind’s eye
And now I sleep the day away
I know I should move on
And if she ever hears this song
I wouldn't know what to say
I'm at the party, snowblind in a ditch
Cerebral landmine gives and takes and takes and takes and takes
We lie all of the time
Caught between the gears of perpetual motion
With no reason nor rhyme, watching Butt's Twelve by Pies
At your personal sugarphone sideshow...
At your personal sugarphone sideshow...
At your personal sugarphone sideshow...
At your personal sugarphone sideshow...
(STAGE!)
credits
from Shane Shan Sean,
released August 27, 2021
Music and lyrics by Shane Smith
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