Warning Signs-A retrospective rewrite: A1
[This is song about how the media sharks would take my writings and songs and twist them if I committed a mass murder. How my words would Ted Bundy me. How they would accuse my wife, friends, parents of missing the signs. The retrospective Detective spelunking twist dance. ]
Verse 1
They found my words after the sirens
After the cameras filled the street
Started digging through the rubble
For a prophecy beneath the beat
There was a joke about the darkness
There was a song about a dream
There was something about the silence
That suddenly meant more than it seemed
Pre-Chorus
Funny how the ending changes
Every sentence that came before
Once you know how the story finishes
You can make anything a warning at the door
Chorus
Warning signs — a retrospective rewrite
Take the strange and make it sinister overnight
Circle every shadow, underline every line
“Look, he told us all along”
Yeah, hindsight’s doing fine
Warning signs
Or just a songwriter’s mind?
Verse 2
I wrote about fear that killed a marriage
I wrote about aliens in the night
I wrote about a white Crayola
And made absurdity feel right
I called myself an empathy vampire
Sucking stories through my veins
Watching people watching people
Trying to understand their pain
Pre-Chorus
Then somebody says, “He was unbalanced”
Somebody else says, “We should’ve known”
A talking head discovers patterns
In a life they never really owned
Chorus
Warning signs — a retrospective rewrite
Take the strange and make it sinister overnight
Circle every shadow, underline every line
“Look, he told us all along”
Yeah, hindsight’s doing fine
Warning signs
Or just a songwriter’s mind?
Bridge
My wife didn’t see a monster
My friends didn’t see a threat
They saw the guy who wouldn’t stop
Following some strange thought to its end
But give a shark tank microphones
And a headline needing blood
Every weird little sentence
Can be turned into a flood
They’ll say:
“Why didn’t anybody notice?”
“Why didn’t anybody call?”
Because maybe strange isn’t dangerous
And maybe darkness isn’t evil at all
Break
And there it is…
The click of silence.
It’s never really silent.
Boom-ba-ba-boom
Boom-ba-ba-boom
Verse 3
Life’s an animal kingdom
And we’re all out watching from the grass
Rubbernecking at the wreckage
Trying to understand the past
Civil War spectators
Watching armies tear apart
Humans have always loved the spectacle
Of somebody else’s broken heart
So maybe that’s my warning
Maybe that’s my only crime:
I kept staring at the strange things
And kept turning them into rhyme
Final Chorus
Warning signs — a retrospective rewrite
Every crazy thought becomes a neon light
Every joke becomes a confession
Every song becomes a crime
Every silence becomes evidence
When you’re reading it backward through time
Warning signs
Maybe there were none
Maybe I was just an observer
With a microphone and a loaded tongue
Warning signs
A retrospective rewrite
The story changes underneath the light
And if you need a villain for the headline tonight
Well…
I suppose my songs will Ted Bundy my legacy
One lyric at a time.
Outro
So don’t worry about the silence
Let the strange thoughts overflow
Cerebrally paint the canvas
Jackson Pollock what you know
Because someday someone may read it
And decide they know your mind…
But they weren’t there when you wrote it.
Boom-ba-ba-boom
Boom-ba-ba-boom
Warning signs…
Or just another human being
Trying to make sense of being human?