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Like "The Shapely Bottles" and "Gone to Stay", "The Next Rest of Our Lives" was written during the February 2008 RPM Challenge. I created a 10 song album from scratch in the shortest month of the year. "Next Rest" was a great closing song and a nice contrast with the penultimate song, a rager called "F Bomb". Where "Winter Ghost" was inspired by actually walking around downtown Northfield late at night, the sequel "Next Rest" is about remembering walking around Northfield late at night and about how different I had been in 1993 than I was in 2008.
While with "Winter Ghost" I imagined suicide to add pathos, with "Next Rest" I imagined divorce. I feel grateful never to have been a victim of either thing in real life. If anyone is thinking of suicide, don't do it! Call one of those hotlines. Otherwise how will you write your sequel to your current episode? It's almost always the wrong people who kill themselves too. David Foster Wallace? Man, I wish he had gotten through that critical moment somehow and lived.
The main "song I didn't like back then" is "No Rain" by Blind Melon. At the time, I had a prejudice against contemporary hit songs. (I realize as I spell that out as such that I still totally have that prejudice.) I refused to play "No Rain" in one of my bands, The New Roots of Suffering, disappointing my bandmate. I should have done it. It would have sounded cool. Sorry Julie, wherever you are! I was being dumb.
"The Next Rest of Our Lives" was obviously written before the social media explosion, or at least before my participation in it. Almost any of the people I would wonder about I can just look up nowadays.
The first line alters slightly the first line of "Snowbird", which I knew from Elvis' deservedly legendary Nashville sessions of June 1970. Musically, the song was inspired by my absolute swooning love for Kirsty MacColl's song "Still Life", relegated unfairly to a b-side but later collected on From Croydon to Cuba: An Anthology and in a gorgeous live acoustic version on What Do Pretty Girls Do?. Dear God, I love that song. Apparently it's on a recent deluxe version of her genius album Kite as well. Check it out!
p.s. Thanks to BPZMAG (who listeners may remember from the studio version of his own "Lunar Eclipse" from Livestream Episode 4) for responding immediately when I texted him to ask:
"What's a percussion instrument that goes "PSsssshhh" really well on the "and" of two? Slightly metallic but it naturally reverberates for a short time."
His suggestion of "tambourine with reverb, muted cymbal, hi hat" led to exactly the sound I was hearing in my head.
Lyrics:
The bridge along the river seems to say
"Remember when you stood under me and peed?"
Songs I didn't like back then I listen to them now
They're all that I have left from that whole scene
Yes, I guess the drinking was bad
And there were people I knew that I shouldn't have
But somehow I wish I knew where they are now
Prob'ly they have jobs and kids and wives
They've turned to face the next rest of their lives
I always loved when we were face to face
Or walking hand in hand for something good
Sturdy like the ancients, we had all eternity
And where we thought we'd stand was where we stood
Though I know the future now
And we're back to back, away somehow
I'll always think of us as side by side
But forever ended early and with purpose in our strides
We turn to face the next rest of our lives
Instrumental: 2nd half of verse/tag
And so I leave the river for the walk back to my car
For the drive back to my house to see my loves
Our littlest is standing now she's steady on her feet
She wants to do whatever sister does
Well until the summer then
a part of me was left here when
the ice and snow were eighteen shades of blue
but even Winter Ghosts away must glide
and turn to haunt the next rest of their lives
and turn to haunt the next rest of our lives
We turn to face the next rest of our lives
Previous song: Winter Ghost