The honest truth ("Broken Record")
This is a tough one. I knew it would be when I started this whole idea of sharing the story behind the song… well, because this one is relatively more personal than usual.
You know when you’ve made a pretty gigantic mistake that kind of shakes your world as you know it and you’re left picking up the pieces? Well, that’s exactly the story behind this song. I’m not going to tell you the exact play-by-play, because I’m pretty sure you can glean the gist of it from the song lyrics. Also, this isn’t your grocery store check-out aisle tabloid.
Anyway, after 3 or four months of harboring this song as close to me as I could, I finally took it to my songwriting group (shoutout to the North Reading Songsters!!). Realistically, it took me about 3 months to call this song finished - because I was trying to repair my emotions and my heart and my consciousness AND write this song about all of that work. I couldn’t call the song done until my work was “done” (though it’s never done) and I could separate myself from the song - at least a little.
When I did finally take it to my group they made two (what-felt-like) hefty recommendations - (1) I had to create a more unified “time” - meaning I mentioned “a week” in the first verse, followed by “a night” in the chorus, followed by “for weeks” in the second verse. That didn’t jive with them. I ended up keeping the initial time frame of “a week” and changing the chorus to “those nights.” Easy. The other edit to the second verse was a bit less straightforward. The version that I took to my songwriting group was:
I’ve been running ‘round in circles,
Chasing my tail for weeks on end now,
I’ve been lying to myself,
Saying I’d have ‘normal’ again
And instead of trying to change the time frame, I just took the time frame out! Here’s what the final version ended up being:
I’ve been running ‘round in circles,
Trying to fix this mess I created
I’ve been lying to myself
Saying I’d have ‘normal’ again
The other suggestion they made had to do with the content of the song: they said (2) the verses had too much fire imagery and it didn’t connect with the chorus. My interpretation of that was: I had to either tone down the fire imagery in the verses OR I had to amp up the fire imagery in the chorus. If you haven’t heard the song yet, or if you haven’t yet gotten to the chorus, I’ll let you guess which route I chose.
Needless to say, everytime I play “Broken Record”, it goes right to my gut - which I think is pretty well conveyed when I play the song… One of the many reasons that I wanted to record this EP as a stripped down project was to convey the emotion that often gets lost in the production process. I chose this song to be the title track of the EP is because it came out so strong in the recording - even after listening to this EP a number of times, and having played it dozens of times in shows and in my practice room, the recording still conveys those emotions of brokenness.
Okay, so now we’re seven months out from the self-inflicted trauma… and I do still feel that brokenness that I felt when I first wrote this song. Thankfully, that pain has been toned down significantly, and even though I feel like the situation is “resolved” - at least as much as it may ever be - the emotional content will always be right on the surface.
-B
“Broken Record”
There was a week,
Where everything nearly crashed and burned
You were a spark, we were a flame,
It was the end of the season
Where everything is bound to catch fire, with nature to blame
I just want you to know
I meant every word I said to you those nights
Yeah I know
Everything I told you only fanned the flame of this fire
There are only so many ways
I can try to explain myself
Before it all sounds the same
I’ve been running round in circles
Trying to fix this mess I created
I’ve been lying to myself,
Saying I’d have normal again
But what the hell does that mean,
When you’ve thrown everything to the fire to watch it burn
I just want you to know
I meant every word I said to you those nights
Yeah I know
Everything I told you only fanned the flame of this fire
There are only so many ways
I can try to explain myself
Before it all sounds the same
I’m a broken record babe,
And I’m afraid we’re running out of time
I can’t go back or make it better,
And I think I’m done with trying,
I think I’m done tonight
But I want you to know
I meant every word I said to you those nights
Yeah I know
Everything I told you only fanned the flame of this fire
There are only so many ways
I can try to explain myself
Before it all sounds the same
It all sounds the same
