May 13 - Deserters

It's amazing how dark and directionless this song sounds. The vocal is purposefully listless, the guitar work dissonant and uneven, and all of it adds to the effect of someone who is unconnected from reality and deeply exhausted about it.

I worry about paranoia. This is a paranoid age, and it can be tough to tell the difference between justified fears and irrational impulses. This is a song that exists at the grubby edge of sanity, pushed there by drugs or psychosis, or other things. I remember when I worked in public libraries helping a woman who needed to use the computer to print out some copies of a letter because she didn't know how. It was the same letter addressed to multiple newspapers and politicians demanding they help with the man living in her attic. At one point she whispered to me "I am so scared right now". She was scared. And I didn't know what to do about it. I still don't. I helped with her printing, but I don't think I helped her at all.