From the recording Short Stories
TK/Cliff Goldmacher
©1998
I have to thank Cliff for his part in getting this song completed, for it was long in the making. I had it partly finished for a good while, and from time to time he would ask me about it as we worked on the album. One day he said, "Why don’t we just make a writing appointment and finish the darned thing?" I agreed–and we did.
I think part of my difficulty in wrapping it up was that it?s intensely personal. It?s not so much that it names names or divulges embarrassing secrets, but more that it reminds me of an extraordinarily painful time. Once we finished, however, the song felt like a blessing, sort of a gift from the past… or maybe a gift to the past to the boy who couldn?t see his way clear.
Lyrics
Was that a devil with a halo or an angel with a tail
Living down in that dark basement I’d mistaken for a cell?
Was I really hearing voices or just talking to myself?
It wasn’t perfectly clear
I was doing all right, I was doing all wrong
I was hiding at the movies, and I was living in a song
That was playing in my head, but I was scared to sing along
As if somebody could hear, and it went…
I know love is not to blame
It’s the one thing right in a world gone wrong
I know, but it’s hard to see it
When it’s a long, long way from here
There was fighting in the kitchen, there was fighting in the streets
There was fighting in Vietnam every night on TV
And there was fighting in my room when there was no one there but me
It was that kind of year
There was trouble ahead, there was trouble behind
There were two kinds of trouble, and the second one was dying
The first one I call living back in 1969
You get the idea
I know love is not to blame
It’s the one thing right in a world gone wrong
I know but it’s hard to see it
When it’s a long, long way from here
I knew that something wasn’t right, I knew it
Knew that story wasn’t ever gonna fly
But when the world says black is white
And you know better what can you do
But go a little crazy
I know love is not to blame
It’s the one thing right in a world gone wrong
I know but it’s hard to see it
When it’s a long, long way from here
I know love is not to blame
It’s the one thing right in a world gone wrong
I know but it’s hard to see it
When it’s a long, long way from here
words & music: Tom Kimmel & Cliff Goldmacher
©1998 Maverick Music Company/Drala Music/WB Music Corp.(ASCAP)/Famous In France Music (BMI)