demo no:12 'lifeline' (Patreon)

Happy monday: I hope your weekend was spectacularly interesting or spectacularly chill, both types of weekend are good I think. Thank you so much for all the love on 'lifeline', the March demo I posted on Friday, it's been so positive and I couldn't be happier. If you didn't get a chance to check it out you can ignore the original post and stick with this one - I spent a couple more hours on it on Sunday so attached is a much better mix; it's got some backing vocals, harmonies, extra guitar bits & the ending not cut off like before (d'oh). I much prefer this one so would highly encourage you to download this one instead, for your ears' sake! :)

I wanted to shed a little light on the lyrics of the song, for anyone that might be interested: in a nutshell 'lifeline' is a song about being patronised. I used to keep some pretty in-depth diaries and I found one recently from a couple years ago. Reading it reminded me of one of some rare boy drama that went down, and I couldn't resist revisiting those feels. I used the word 'lifeline' somewhere in that diary entry and it stuck.

I fell for a guy who I think never felt quite the same way.  We were good friends & dated (saw eachother? whAt is the right lingo) for a bit, but my head went a million miles an hour with it and suddently a younger, more naive me believed this lad might be the one I'd end up with. I got super invested, super fast. In the end he wasn't so nice to me.. or so nice to anyone; it turned out he'd been seeing more than one gal at once, unbeknown to each of us. When we found out & all hell broke loose, I was pretty gutted and spent a while moping, reluctant to trust anyone, all that fun stuff. In the end he was so apologetic and we went on to stay good friends. Naturally it took us a while to get there, though; he changed big time and became lovely again and I grew up a lot.

When I was still hurt about it & before we were really friends again, he showed up out of the blue. I'd told him I needed space (classssic) so seeing him again led to a weird cocktail of frustration, anger & weakness; I was still so fond of him and I guess I was in the process of training myself out of that a bit, to try protect myself from getting hurt again. The first verse is about the immediate reaction to seeing him unexpectedly: "nightmare,  I saw you standing you were right there / I surrender, your face is just how I remember".

Ultimately the weakness passes and turns sour in the chorus. His intentions were good; he was showing up to see if I was OK, but asking him to keep a distance and being ignored felt so condescending. "I'm gonna be just fine, I don't need your lifeline" (tell 'em, gurl). Lyrically it gets a bit more spikey in the bridge.. it's the height of the frustration and I'm fullllll of venom, speaking about how he only shows up when he's on his own again. Grrrrr.

All's well that ends well and luckily this isn't something I think too much about anymore, but a first little heartbreak is a weirdly poignant thing, and I'm glad I dedicated a little more headspace to it last month.

v1:

Nightmare, I saw you standing you were right there

I surrender, our face is just how I remember

PRE:

To think about it now 

You threw me overboard, no hesitation

Now you're trying to figure out

How to come back looking like a saviour

CHORUS: 

And I

I'm gonna be just fine, no I don't need your lifeline

I, I'm gonna be just fine, no I don't need your lifeline

Tell me one more time how you're the one to save it all

I'll tell you one more time how you're the one that made me fall

No I don't need your lifeline

v2:

Flashback, oh how I used to wish that you would come back

Now I'm past hurt, so it's strange to see you crawl out of the woodwork

(pre) (chorus)

bridge:

Now you cast your rope, like it's all just a joke

Like you forgot what happened here

Why do you just show up when you're down on your luck

And when you've got no ship to steer

(chorus)

...aaaaand that's it. Please do keep listening/downloading & sharing opinions, as I always love hearing them, even when they're not-so good

xxxxxx