Unfinished Song Vault: Phantom (but jazzy?) (Patreon)

This one feels appropriate for spooky season 👻

I have mixed feelings about this one, I'm not gonna lie. I low-key love the vibe and the kind of cleverness of it, but it doesn't really feel like my style...not that I really know what my style is, I suppose 😅

I wrote this early last year during yet another bout of frustration around the incessant messaging of "you're young; you are/will be fine" and "you'll get better because you deserve good things / because you're a good person." That's just simply not how it works, unfortunately 🤷‍♀️ There is no karmic justice in pain or health or chronic illness. It doesn't matter who you are: "good" or "bad", kind or malicious, young or old, active or sedentary, naughty or nice. Pain and/or illness can affect anyone.

And I know we all know that, but sometimes I really wonder 😅 Do we?? Is this not common knowledge? Because the frequency with which people assume, even insist, otherwise when confronted with it in the real world is...a lot more than you might expect.

It is very common for me to be "reassured" that I'll get better, or questioned about how I am "still sick" or how I can possibly be in pain every day, or questioned for how seemingly functional I am, or told "time heals all things", which... when they're referring to your chronic illness takes on a bit of a different tone 😂 Yes. In time, I will no longer be sick. I will instead be dead 😅👍

Anyway... I wrote this from the perspective of pain as an entity. Where "pain," instead of being an experience, it is a being. A demon. A phantom - not visible, but most certainly present.

And this phantom, Pain, doesn't give a hoot who you are, what you do, or where you are in life. Pain doesn't care what you think is going to ward it off. Pain affects us all. In some capacity, at some point.

Since nobody listens to a silly little girl, maybe they'll get it if it's coming from Pain itself 😂🙈

Lyrics:

Hi, I'm the phantom of your pain

Are you a sinner or a saint?

Well I don't differentiate, no

I don't play favourites, I play games

So good luck with your chips & your card tricks

You'll still know my name