It was all about me
Embers One is my journal this year. Journals are meant to be personal, and this song takes it about as deep as I can go. Maybe someone will hear and connect, and that would be awesome. But this is me confessing, regretting, and looking back.
I cheated (and was addicted to behaviors that lead to cheating) and messed up two really beautiful marriages. I tore apart relationships and ran recklessly over people’s lives in my selfishness. It was all vanity and pride. I wanted what I wanted, so I manipulated and used people to get there. Don’t do this. It doesn’t make you powerful, it simply makes you controlling.
Breaking. Breaking. Breaking. That is all I did, and all I was capable of doing — because when you chase your own selfishness you are incapable of fixing or healing. You can only break things. I shattered everything and everyone. I thought (more accurately lied to myself) it was about looking for love, trying to find someone to give me that ultimate “feeling”.
Actually, though, what I was doing was running from love. I had people that loved me. But when they did I ran away, or ran to another. I desperately wanted to be “in love” — but my selfishness kept me from ever being “in” love. [The setoff quotations are really important as you read that.]
OK, so this song doesn’t have a happy ending. The whole story does, but not this chapter. You can interpret the last part of it however you want, but it’s not good. And I told you it was really personal!
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The bass on here is a cool little Kala U-Bass, a bass ukulele. It’s noisy but fun, and almost sounds like an upright. I have always wanted to play upright bass if for no other reason than to lend some authenticity to calling other musicians, “cats.”
I’ve got a slide going on in here too. I’m not sure if I was trying to sound like Dylan, a jazz ensemble, or a cowboy. Whenever I feel very inward I always pick up my nylon-string, and you can hear it throughout. It was my first guitar and it always seems to be holding all those years of me inside itself.
Next song, there will be a happy ending...