I grew up in a pine tree-encrusted two-story house in Pasadena. It was pretty great.

But when I was sixteen, we sold it and moved to my grandmother’s estate over on the border of South Pasadena (the richer, more arrogant version of Pasadena). 

It’s lovely. Or at least, it would be, if we had $200,000 to pour into it. When trying to describe the state of the place, I often think of the house from Eternal Sunshine at the end of the film—someone’s slowly erasing memory.

It was a weird place to spend the end of high school. You’d think that, fantasy bookworm as I was, I would relish the idea of living in a place that A) could have been haunted B) was drenched in history and C) had a god damn Secret Garden, but I don’t know. There was something about it that never felt like home, and even coming back for holidays, it’s very strange. 

So the night after Thanksgiving, while I was pondering this over in bed, I pulled out my iPhone and tapped out a little poem-song (which you can find in full over on wordcetera). It’s the first real new song I’ve written in two years.

This evening, for whatever reason, I decided to try actually putting music to it. A little daunting, considering that I—not being extraordinarily well-versed in the arts of writing in song—usually rely on rhymes and easy chords to get me through things. (c.f all my high school song recordings, which pretty much all used some progression of Am—>C—>D.)

The result is the video. I’m actually decently pleased with it, for a scratch track. Audio’s kind of crummy, thanks to recording it on my MacBook’s internal mic, but it still works, I think.

And I’m posting my revised lyrics below, for posterity.

Ode to a Broken Old Home

There’s a place I used to live
with holes in the walls.
And half-painted stars
a blue unfinished canvas
long-forgotten memories.

This place I once called home
it’s all a tether
to the old life
the person who once occupied these halls,
this bed perched way up here in the sky.

She laughs at my confidence
and picks at my insecurities.
Flakes of green paint fall
They stick to my skin
the armor with which
I turn back to 16

And all the walls are peeling
All the floorboards have splinters
we slip, fall back
reminded of the lives we used to lead
in the broken old home

This mansion wasn’t ours
It got stuck
on us somehow
Overgrown gardens
and a lock full of keys
Teasing their potential.

But the knobs keep falling off
And the drapes are all drab
There’s no way to escape
no way to go back
no way to retreat
and…

all the walls are peeling…

And I wonder if I protest too much
Packing myself away
Leaving the room empty and aging
Returning to find a stranger’s voice
cluttering the space
And unfamiliar trinkets in the closet.

But the walls will still be peeling
And floorboards will always have splinters
Don’t want to slip back
into the life I used to lead
in this broken old home.

So I pack, and I run
And maybe if I’m fast enough
I’ll outrun you all