Pretend I'm Dead

This started as a 3 or 4 minute long piece, written after falling completely in love with Robin Trowers’ ‘Bridge of Sighs’ LP, and the track “Too Rolling Stoned” in particular. By the time I brought it to the table for This Caustic Autumn to arrange, there’s not much trace of its roots left to be seen, or heard, for that matter. The second half is essentially teh blooz, but really… it’s not very bluesy. I don’t think. Progressive Psychedelic Dirge Blues, perhaps. Who can say?
Rain.

The live video attached is from The Opera House in Toronto, August 2008. I’d booked a few shows in the city when the original drummer and bass player bailed on me because the band was taking off to quickly. Josh Bruzzese and Eric Weavers stepped up and learned a 40 minute set with me with about a week and a half to get it all down. Forever indebted to them for that.
Josh ended up sticking around and became the official second half of the writing team.

Pretend I’m Dead
I, in sideways strides, I half embrace what’s been coded and erased.
Enchanted, cryptic hallways made out of swollen casts in pairs.
Filled with ribbon and always paid by stolen masks who stare.
I let myself be purged of everything. I stopped to talk to the water’s edge.
My love might have been sore with me, so I pretend I’m dead.

A pregnant pause, mistrusted thoughts, intrinsic laws made to defy.
A stagnant cause holds out its claws to the thinnest strands of you and I.
My love might have been sore with me so I pretend I’m dead.

You carry such grand knives and you know how to wield them.
You apologize; guilty, soft, and crazy. But I know where the faults lie.
Sore with me, so I pretend I’m dead.