Deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook On Valentine's Day yesterday in Florida, it tore legs It's 5:30 AM, the news has been on since I went home Since 1 o'clock in the morning I've been waking up every hour or so looking at the CNN TV glow Came home, open my email My friend Kevin asked, "How are you processing this?" I said I was in the studio getting ready to sing And then the drummer walked in and said, "Hey, did you see this?" I said, "What?", he said, "Looks like another high school shooting" I said, "Where?", he said, "It looks like it happened about an hour north of Miami" I said, "How many?", he said, "It looks like fourteen, or something" I told Kevin from that point on my band discussed it for maybe 20 minutes Donny said, "Why don't they just get rid of the guns, like they did in Australia?" I sat there befuddled and said, "I don't know what to tell ya But the Republicans like having their right to bear arms Even if it blows kids off the planet They spend their lives without their legs or arms The Republicans believe in their right to bear arms No matter the rising death toll and the amount of harm it causes to innocent people They have their right to bear arms" And honestly from that point on, we picked up our instruments I got three musicians out here from New York and we're here to play music They were on the clock So until I got home tonight and saw your email All the thoughts about the Florida shooting, I blocked
Another player had joined us last night around 6 or 7 We were improvising on a piece of music he said sorta reminded him of Bill Evans It sounded good to me, it sounded like a slice of heaven Jim was playing his drums but Donny wouldn't play After about 15 minutes of this beautiful piano playing Donny stood up and said, "Guys, this doesn't sound like Bill Evans" I said, "What do you mean?", he said, "This is Bill Evans" I asked the drummer, "Did you notice?", he said, "Yes" And I said, "Well, what in the fuck are we doing?" I said to the player who had joined us here for fifteen solid minutes Eyes like "Damn, this piece of music is genius" And he said, "Like I said, it's this left-handed thing, and the style of Bill Evans" I said, "But Donny and Jim said it actually is Bill Evans And thank god they were here to tell me this, thank Evans Or I would have released this beautiful song And someone would have called me out and said, 'You ripped off Bill Evans'"
I asked the guys, "Who is this guy, anyhow?" "It's Bill Evans," he said, "One of the most famous jazz pianists in the world" I said, "I think I may have heard of him Or maybe I'm getting him confused with the chain food restaurant Bob Evans Bob Evans, yeah I got that association, Bob Evans" I was with my friend's sister Debbie when I was 18 in Ohio below the thrash metal show We walked outside to have a cigarette It was freezing outside, the ground was covered in snow When a girl confronted Debbie outside and said "You think you're so fucking cool with your nose in the air, don't you?" Debbie said, "What are you even talking about, I've never even met you" The girl said, "You're a fucking snob I've been standing around observing you all night with your dyed black hair You think you're too cool for school, don't you?" Debbie got tense, raised her voice, and said "So I've traveled a bit, what do you know about anything? What do you know?" Debbie's tone was getting aggressive and escalating, she said to the girl "Where in the fuck have you ever been to in this world besides Ohio?" The girl just stood there and got this big smirk on her face and I thought, "Oh no" And she sucker punched Debbie, knocked her ass down to the ground And spit in her face and walked back to the thrash metal show
I lifted Debbie from the snow and she stood there sobbing and sobbing Her brother came up to me and said "Mark, what's going on? What happened to Debbie?" I said, "Man, it happened so fast, I'm sorry I didn't do anything to protect your sister" He pulled me aside and said, "Let me tell you something, Mark Don't worry about it, she's always had a mouth on her" I said, "I know, but she's your sister and I've got her back We enjoyed the concert, I've got it from here" I said, "Don't worry about it, Debbie will shake it off Now let's get the fuck out of here" We got in her car and I told her I understood this humiliating feeling Well I got knocked out a few times myself and I know it's humbling and embarassing So we went to Bob Evans and sat and drank coffee I tried to talk Debbie into a calmer state She was so distracted and I tried to console her but she was clearly hijacked In too much emotional pain for conversation I said, "Debbie, drop me off" And from that point on I don't think I ever heard from her again I think it's because she associates me with that bad night That ended at Bob Evans, and I understand
And on the way home I said to my friend "Why'd you kick off tonight with a Bill Evans song?" He said, "I was just trying to ease into things" I said, "That's cool but we're not a cover band We're here to make an album of original songs" He said, "Yeah, I guess that was wrong" I said, "Yeah man, I guess everything is sort of anticlimactic When you try to come up with fresh ideas when you play Bill Evans" He said, "Yeah you're right, I don't know what I was thinking" I said, "Hey don't worry about it, everything else seemed like it sounded amazing" So anyhow I came home and I turned on the news Angry as I always get when these things happen, thinking about what I could do To help the cause, to influence people, to do what I can to change gun laws For starters, I'm going to dedicate a song To the kids from Florida who didn't live long whose families grieve While the rest of the world gets on their phones and their lives go on And maybe in the song I'll share my own private thoughts In fact, I think I will I think they should go Django Unchained on the killer they caught Hang him upside down and cut off his balls Bleed him to death and leave a slow, bloody death When seventeen kids are murdered, you skip due process I don't care if he was vulnerable in a home full of drug abuse and incest Or allegedly brainwashed by white supremacists Whatever the case may be for him, yeah it's very sad and unfortunately Well, escorting this man from the planet is in everyone's best interest When a guy can kill seventeen kids, dispose of him quick and fast
I live in San Francisco and my thoughts about this might go against the flow But yeah, I think they should torture him to death With whatever the methods may have been used at Guantanamo Make an example of him and hang him up to dry I say more aggressive action should be taken against mass shooters At least give it a try Anyone who laughs at the death of innocent kids Should not have the privilege of being alive Maybe the parents of the victim will get together and kill him vigilante-style Maybe somebody in the local jail will meet up with him in the infirmary And stab him seventeen times And justice will prevail, and that will be the end of the story Of the Valentine's Day killer's miserable life So I asked Kevin by email, "By the way, how are you processing this? It's gotta be harder for you than it is for me, you got a 13 year old kid" But Kevin's on New York time, it's 6:30 AM and so far from Kevin no reply Another day in America, another day in the life Another day in America, another day in the life Another day in America, another day in the life Another day in America, another day in the life Republicans will say, "This is a very sad day in America We're sorry for the families of the dead children" And then they'll go on about second amendment rights And stand there with their white dicks and their white hands And stand next to their white wives Another day in America, another bag of white rice
I just woke up this morning, February 15th I had a dream about AR-15s, probably based on the news That said eight million Americans own AR-15s And I dreamed I was doing vocals I asked my engineer what kind of mic we're using today And he said, "An AR-15" I said, "Isn't that the name of the gun that did the killing at the school yesterday?" And he said, "No, that was an M-49" I said, "I thought we normally use the U-47" He said, "Sometimes, other times we use an Audio Technica 460 or the Shure SM-7" I said, "Well, they all sound like automatic weapons to me That send innocent kids off to heaven So I prefer if we don't use the AR-15" He said, "But it's the best microphone this studio has available" I said, "But that microphone is what politicians use at press conferences" And then I woke up from the dream So that's it, I got out of bed and took a bath and got ready to go to the studio And I got Kevin's reply by email I called him up and asked if he would kindly read it to me
[Kevin Corrigan:] "I don't think I am processing it, unless reading about it on the internet counts Reading and internalizing what's being written about it, tweeted about it Which is that nothing ever changes And that another shooting will happen every sixteen hours That Columbine was 20 years ago now It was in the news at that time for months and years But Parkland will likely disappear from the news cycle in a week And George Carlin used the expression 'circling the drain' Circling the drain to describe the human condition in this hour This ceaseless, endless madness and violence The resulting information overload and the subsequent collective amnesia Has to mean we're so close to the drain at this point Circling it so intensely at this point That the experience can no longer be processed Because we're moving too fast And because we're being processed Pulsed, like vegetables"Teksty umieszczone na naszej stronie są własnością wytwórni, wykonawców, osób mających do nich prawa.
