Past-perfect Tense by Injury
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This song is weird for me. It is me singing, and me playing guitar, but I have no real memory of this song. I remember writing it. I remember recording it. But I don’t remember it. Your guess on the majority of the lyrics is as good as mine. I can’t understand myself.
I do, however, remember what it is about. I was imagining myself 10-15 years in the future… house in the suburbs, musical aspirations a thing of the past, and working at a job I hate. That’s what all of the “this dream is not mine” business is about.
The irony is that, in some part, this song was prophetic. I consider myself an ex-musician. Not ex-musician in the sense that I never play instruments, but ex-musician in the sense of vocation. It no longer defines who I am.
Now, I am a pastor.
Perhaps, if I can offer a rear-view commentary on the lyrics I can understand in this song, the dream needing to be let go of was not some future one in which I spent my life in service to others, but the selfish and naive dream of un-ending youth that the life of a punk musician promised.
It was a lie anyway.
