song 099 : Déjà vu (Nonpoetic Rain: Live on KXLU)

This moody song about a lost friend is one of my favorite freestyle improvisations. The band was swept away into something special. My stream of consciousness lyrics clicked on this track, inspired by the guitarists who both gave wonderful performances out of thin air.

Since I knew Coyote was coming up next I returned to searching my feelings about Margaret and our lost band. Ronnie’s melancholic opening lick had been a favorite of our ex drummer Tia, but we never had a chance to make it into a song. It was the perfect starting place for a complete catharsis, a ritual purging of the sadness I felt about the end of my mostly girl band.

Am I singing about Margaret most of the time in this song, or myself? Both of us, I guess. I doubted she was listening anymore. I was singing about all the lonely coyotes out there, the runaways, the throwaways, the students in their claustrophobic rooms listening in the dark, the drivers on the freeway, all of us ultimately alone in the midnight storm.

KXLU is a Jesuit college. At the beginning of the song I can barely be heard saying into a toy megaphone: “please control your Jesuits.”

Listen to the song: Click Here