Copperanna

Again, this is another song written in my little sludge hole in Logan. I guess the only good thing that ever came out of that apartment was music. This is a song for a girl I never met named Anna. I wrote this during the early days of internet chat rooms. I can't remember what chat room it was, but I had been talking music with a group of people. One of the girls, named Anna, said she wished someone would write a song for her. I gave it a shot. Like I said, I never met the kid. Now, to write a song called "Anna" was quite boring in my mind - no offense to the name. The Beatles recorded a song called "Anna (Go With Him)" that is on their first album. It always seemed like a filler song to me. I remember I had been working on writing songs that day and I didn't have a pick, so I used a penny. After I had been playing for a while I was taking a break and chewing my fingernails. Of course, my fingertips tasted like copper. All of a sudden I had the name of the song. It's also attributed to the strange name songs that the Smashing Pumpkins had - "Tristessa", "Stumbleine", "Medilla"... So I had the name for my song - "Copperanna". It's not about anyone at all - it all came together because of someone's name and my love for chewing my fingernails.

Another funny side note to the song is that I was writing these lyrics in church one Sunday and my mom asked to look at them. She couldn't understand why I would write a lyric about wanting to be someone's whore. I tried to explain to her that it was an extreme way of saying that I wanted to belong to someone. She thought I should just say that. I thought about it and decided to stay with my lyric. All these years later I still have people that have heard this song say that that line is their favorite line in a song.
I want to be your pocket
Your hand inside of me
I want to be temptation
Your hand as it bleeds
I can never see you
I want to die and be you
I want to set you free

I want to be your whispers
Your breath as you sleep
I want to fall and hurt you
Your tears as you weep
I’m purple suicide
I’m black eyes open wide
I’m nothing you should keep

I’m just a bad dream
To lay down on your pillow
Trapped in the slipstream
You are all I know
Copperanna

I want to be your trophy
Your secret little whore
I want your indignation
The reason you want more
I’m twisted fantasy
I’m prayers and blasphemy
I’m all that you adore

I’m just a bad dream
To lay down on your pillow
Trapped in the slipstream
You are all I know
Copperanna

I want to be your mourning
Your coffin in the ground
I want your consolation
Your arms to lay me down
I’m cracked crystal ball
I’m broken china doll
I’m secrets never found

I’m just a bad dream
To lay down on your pillow
Trapped in the slipstream
You are all I know
Copperanna

Walk Alone

I wrote this song sometime in 2000 I believe. I was living by myself in my crappy little attic apartment in Logan, UT. It was such a waste hole. I was watching TV one night and I saw a gargoyle on TV on a commercial or something. I thought to myself, "I've never heard of a gargoyle reference in a song", so I wrote one. I could be wrong. There could be lots of gargoyle references in songs. Anyway, this is a completely nonsensical song. There is no secret meaning to it. It's just a collection of words put together to make the song. I wanted to put strange imagery into it. I think I succeeded.


For a little while
Kiss a baby smile
Don’t give in to your hate
Scarlet edelweiss
Full of tar surprise
Locked inside heaven’s gate

Wander slowly through the dew drop covered streets
Dancing slowly to a cotton candy beat

Dust off my forgets
Pained with my regrets
And a story to tell
Talk of summer rain
Wish for endless pain
Buried deep in a well

Listen to the violin scream its expression
While you’re dreaming of a tongue dyed in depression

With a gargoyle stare
You can take me there
But I can’t walk alone
I have no home

Fight the war for me
Claim insanity
Make a peppermint choice
Don’t forget your song
All the rights made wrong
Taste my lollipop voice

See me scrape my ache from off these mortal bones
Liquid passion sings to me in foreign tones

With a gargoyle stare
You can take me there
But I can’t walk alone
I have no home

Look through my soul if you can
Grasp my life with plastic hand
Walk through lemonade night skies
Open up your cherry eyes

There’s no laughter here
Only bottled fear
And a faceless suicide
Morning’s just begun
With a velvet tongue
And a spirit you’ve denied


With your stained glass heart you quiver on the floor
Hoping desperately that one day he’ll adore

With a gargoyle stare
You can take me there
But I can’t walk alone
I have no home

Heart Beat

I wrote this song today. I just sat down and started playing this chord sequence over and over and this is what happened. This is my own little attempt at writing a Nine Inch Nails song. Not quite the same. I don't have access to the same equipment he does, but you get a very rough demo of the song. I'm not quite sure what it is about, but I think its probably about beating ourselves up. I also think its about stepping into the background of life. What do you think?



I digress from what I have to tell you
I fall into words that I don't know
I feel like a mess that I can't sell you
Giving one last breath to make it so

Lying on a bed of nails and roses
Watching as a funeral passes by
Fighting through the urge of overdoses
Bleeding through pathetic tears I cry

Screaming at the top of my lungs calms me
Emptiness just feels like home
Angels of the night continuing psalming
Harmonized with demon tones

I watch fingers falling off
Of hands that I don't use
Heart beat bleeds through my own thoughts
My conscience's own abuse

I fall through the cracks of other people
Buried in a mind I call my own
Find me in the shadow of God's great temple
Fusing faith and hope to my poor bones

I will not relay on my own power
I'll stand inside a truth made of stone
Waiting for the death in the final hour
Looking for the answers unknown

I watch fingers falling off
Of hands that I don't use
Heart beat bleeds through my own thoughts
My conscience's own abuse
My conscience's own abuse

Scratching at the Surface

This is another one of those songs I have yet to record. When I was living in Minnesota a friend and I started a band called Screwtape. This was a song that we worked on and had sounding really good. We never had enough time to practice together and get anything off the ground, but this song was sounding really good. It's a nice little song with very sparce instrumentation on it, but when the chorus kicks in it pounds into your skull. I wrote it one day after listening to "October" by U2. The song is simply about my favorite theme - struggling with becoming comfortable in your own skin.


Words haunt me
Undaunting
I'm nothing
A tear drop
I'm a clown
Bleeding frown
Unaware
Of who I am


I'm scratching at the surface of my soul
I'm searching for the piece to make me whole
I've made myself a slave inside this hole
My dark soul


I'm confused
Self abused
Razorblade
Made my day
In the dirt
I can't hurt
I won't leave
I want to live


I'm scratching at the surface of my soul
I'm searching for the piece to make me whole
I've made myself a slave inside this hole
My poor soul


So unfit
Take a trip
In my head
What's in there?
I'm not right
Not all wrong
Lost myself
But I found God


I'm scratching at the surface of my soul
I'm searching for the piece to make me whole
I've made myself a slave inside this hole
My new soul

Freak

This is not a song I have recorded yet. I wrote it while living in a mouse infested attic of a garage in Minnesota shortly after moving there to finish up school. It's a song about realizing who you are and then being comfortable with that. We all can think lowly of ourselves at times, but when you finally enjoy who you are - that's what matters. You may be as normal as the rest of the world and that's fine, if you're okay with that. You may also be one of the few that won't color in the lines, dips their french fries in chocolate shakes and doesn't care who sees you cry. That's okay too. Don't let anyone get you down.


In tomorrow's window pane
I'll remember I'm so plain
Scratching sweetly at my throat
I will sing a brand new note


Am I frightened of myself?
Old and dirty on this shelf
In my mind I'll find retreat
While you outwardly defeat


Should I kick myself on down the stairs
So I can see the stars?
Dress me up in some sad yellow day
Then please just go away


I finally found a way
To burn away my day
And now I've reached my peak
I'm something of a freak


I could never fly away
I will never be okay
Life's a ladder I can't climb
In my twisted, dirty mind


From a distance I will watch myself
And laugh with all my might
Why can't I take the things I hate in me
And leave them all behind?


I finally found a way
To burn away my day
And now I've reached my peak
I'm something of a freak


I am swinging on my hinge
So I'll jump off of this bridge
Cursed to burn the whole night through
What a wicked thing to do


Should I walk outside and lick the sky
To see if I should pray?
These fires burn away at my old self
And now I feel okay


I finally found a way
To burn away my day
And now I've reach my peak
I'm something of a freak

Fall

I wrote this song shortly after I learned that my wife and I were going to have our first child. Everything felt as peaceful as if I were floating through the air with no worries. Even though there are references to dying I wasn't really thinking about dying. It just fit into the song nicely. Sometimes that's just the way the music and lyrics work.



Some day I won't walk the fine line
I will think with my mind
What was lost I will find

Someone wants to have a bad day
But I really can't say
Life will be okay

How far can you go
With nothing to show

I'd fall through the air
Although I don't care
What I would see there
I'd fall through the sky
Although I would die
With no wings to fly

If I broke a rainbow in half
I don't think I would laugh
I don't think I would

I can't wait until tomorrow
To learn what I don't know
Where will my life go?

While I sit and yearn
Will I find my self stop burning

I'd fall through the air
Although I don't care
What I would see there
I'd fall through the sky
Although I would die
With no wings to fly

While I sit and yearn
Will I find myself stop burning

I'd fall through the air
Although I don't care
What I would see there
I'd fall through the sky
Although I would die
With no wings to fly

When the Clowns Cry

This is the earliest song I have. I wrote this song when I was about 15, which would have been 1991-ish. I remember sitting in bedroom in Arizona writing it. It was the first song I had ever written on the guitar and it was the first song I had ever written where I used imagery. I was particularly pleased with the lyric "You'd take the shadow from my grave". I remember how much I liked the bitterness of the song. It was the first song I wrote where I was really convinced that I could write good songs with forceful lyrics.

You never saw how I felt
Left with the hand I was dealt
I know you never cared
'Cause you were so unfair
You took all I had from my hands

You made everything unreal
Though your thoughts were concealed
I know you'd steal it all
And leave me here to fall
You'd take the shadow from my grave

And you just laugh at your lies
Even when the clowns cry

Left alone with my pain
Freezing cold in the rain
You slapped me on my face
Saying I was such a waste
Why'd you even give me time of day?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised
That you made the clowns cry

I'll scratch your back while you stab mine
Sometimes you treat me way too kind
You say you're good, but child you're bad
You're only happy when I'm sad

Tossing and turning in my bed
Thinking of all that you said
"You're so fun to use
And easy to abuse
Though I try I really can't forget

You broke my heart and said goodbye
Then went to watch the clowns cry
You bit my hand and left me to die
Just so you could see the clowns cry