Found a Friend. For awhile . . .

I bet you didn't know that I get major stage-fright just before a show. The cold-clammy-hands-on-the steering-wheel kind of stage fright. I can't believe sometimes that even after playing nearly 1,000 shows in my career, I still feel the same way I did when I was a geeky nine year old. Something about the rush of knowing you can fail miserably really makes my blood flow.

Sometimes I feel like I've handed the audience a scapel, drawn a big red X on my chest, and told them to enjoy. Someone forgot to give me anthesia. Maybe that's why so many musicians drink heavily,

I wrote a song awhile back that talks about it. Talks about how difficult it is to think of anyone as anything more than a temporary friend.

Jade Tree Eyes

Where'd you go
Kelsey Rose
I'm a thousand miles from home
And the telephone wires
And the pale denim sky
Frames the snow
On the road

I guess I really can't convict you
I guess I really can't complain
Of the lines that I lost
And the fantasies I left in the fields
Long the way

Jade Tree Eyes
I found a friend, for awhile
Jade Tree Eyes
I find a friend in you
Jade Tree Eyes
Simple patch, across the heart
Jade Tree Eyes
I find a friend in you

It's been an awfully chill December
Clutching hard to bitter fall
And I find that my time
Is mostly ticked away at singing songs
To empty halls

All my remnants of devotion
And my fantasies of youth
Are tried by the age
Of the ashen cover girl
As I reach out in the darkness for the truth

Kelsey Rose, they're calling for me
And I'm forced to face the crowd
Will I run, will I fight, will the melodies I write
Change the hearts, move the heads

I'm going to try again to love them
Though I feel to weak to stand
But I'll lean on the man
That I can not feel or see
And I'll tremble as He takes me by the hand