So Free
The search for freedom and its unintended side effects
These are the lyrics of a song I released recently, one that I initially wrote as a poem. I am sharing them in poetry style here, but for obvious reasons they have a hip hop feeling to them. If you’d like to listen to the full track, you can find it here.
Do you think in words or images?
I think I think in sounds man
Rhythm, frequencies, melodies…
that stuff you know?
Whatcha mean you think in rhythms?
you just got tunes
playing in the background all the time?
Ain’t that deep
but yeah..
I guess it’s different brainwaves
or something…
Words and music and images…
they’re all… snippets
they come and go, one after another
- can’t really control em
I mean sure you can try but…
whatever, enough talkin, just listen
I been trying not to jump a broken ship
cling and hold on
I know all of it
But the bitch still sunk
oh what a surprise!
So I swam to my island
from over there I sent
a message in a bottle
clear passageways
calm I stays
go just read
my subtle note
(and it goes)
So alone and so free
got no home
can’t you see
I’ve crossed the wide wild sea
just to finally be
so alone and so free
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Yes, I’m stranded alone
and my home is too far
especially
cause I don’t remember
which star to follow
my heart’s grown hollow
Now I breathe my own air
and she’s lookin right where
I last been seen
but they’ll never find me out here
I am set to disappear
I lost a well-founded fear
the fear of loss
now I’m gone, run and run
as far as I can
whichever direction
ain’t gon find no friend
nobody to choose
and nobody to lose
how safe, how free!
And yet
when the sky is dark
and the sun has set
and the fire’s burned out
it’s a doubt that keeps lingering
slowly keeps building in me
now I’m up
and I shout
turn my inside out
I’m about to jump ship again
strippers and poets I miss
one to kick us real hard
and slow potheads in bliss
So alone and so free
got no home
can’t you see
I’ve crossed the wide wild sea
just to finally be
so alone and so free
But this kinda freedom
I’ll call it a lie
when motherfuckers lie
on their deathbeds
waiting to die
and real ready to preach
realize it wasn’t right
to be walking alone
for years stretched too long
A few final breaths,
I’ve had it all backwards,
keep my story in mind
you ain’t gon find no island
far enough out
to protect you -
he was gon go on
but his voice trails off
and a cough is the last sound
outta his mouth
So alone and so free
got no home
can’t you see
I’ve crossed the wide wild sea
just to finally be
so alone and so free
make of this what you will
what amount pays the bill
for a life lived divided?
no strivin can hide it
realizin what I did
Gotta turn the other way
before it’s time to lay down
- Choose your aims now
it don’t take no saints now
to reclaim some
connection where there ain’t none
