Dysfunctional Family Blues

Specs

• Type: song with words
• Version: 1.0 (recorded c.1993) (written 1992 or 1993)
• Download: <section begin=download-links />MP3<section end=download-links />
• Video: YouTube - me performing this on the piano at Smith Family Reunion talent show, 2010-07-10 (vocals barely audible)

Lyrics

A thousand tiny airplanes wander through your mother's garden

As she paints a golden picture of the way it used to be

I listen as you whistle all of Mozart's major pieces

And you're breaking all my records but it doesn't bother me

So you've taken all your medals and you're using them as doorstops

And you've sold your family diamonds to the madman down the street

Well listen here my darling -- you've got to take it slowly

They will put you in a fishtank very philosophically

Alas I spoke too quickly, I'll rephrase that faulty stanza

While you're busy hunting shadows in your castle by the sea

So now I'm standing in the alley and you're drawing little circles

And you always pay attention to everyone but me

Notes

I wrote this for Jenny.

Mother of God recorded a version of this that I'm not 100% happy with; I may be able to remix and tweak that recording to make it more satisfactory. I may also do a new version from scratch, in all my spare time.

Some of the lyric lines could use a bit of rework*, but overall it says what I want it to.

(*everyone sees "family diamonds" and thinks it's a reference to gonads or something, which it isn't; also "madman down the street" doesn't quite fit. "pawnshop down the street"? I wanted to convey the idea of carelessly abandoning something very precious. A bit like this BF5 lyric from "Where's Summer B?": "I tried to tell you, tried to tell you, took a little bit too long / And now your phone is disconnected and your shit's out on the lawn.")