Hide with no seek
Don’t know what to say
Too scared to speak
Feeling weak
Hiding from the day
‘Cause I know I’m up a creek
The truth hurts
And I can’t take the pain
Reminiscence of adolescence
Glory days gone down the drain
Wasted years
Crying over wasted years
Look at me
Finished high school with no diploma
College with no degree
In the army
Lungs filled with carcinoma
Fighting an unseen enemy
Loading up the cannons
Greasing up the tanks
Three whole years at the bottom of the ladder
Never getting any ranks
Wasted years
Dying slow through wasted years
Love and sex
Social life goes on
From one girlfriend to the next
Today here tomorrow gone
Living off allowance checks
My dad tells me Son
When’ll you do something with yourself
Do something with yourself!
Instead of wasting your years!
Dead ends
Without any viable means
To reach my ends
Weekends
Playing the same old scenes
Going out drinking with my friends
Thirty years old
Still living with my folks
Still hanging around the center of town
Cracking those same old jokes
Wasted years
Crying over wasted years
Wasted years
Dying slow through wasted years
© 2002 The Hesh Inc.
The lyrics tell the story, and the picture gives it away—I wrote this when I was in the army, probably during the first half of my service when I was a grunt in an artillery unit. Very often I'd ask myself, what the f&%$ am I doing here? All my friends back in the USA are going to college, playing in bands, and partying it up ... and here I am, doing what, exactly? (Yes, I was defending the country I was living in. I am fully cognizant of that. But sometimes—often—a conscript in his late teens doesn't see the forest for the trees.) Well, I made it out of there, and eventually made it back to the NJ/NY area, where I put together a band and screamed at the world about how lousy I had it during that era. The band was called FREEDOM IS PRICELESS—itself a slogan that I scrawled inside sentry posts from the Golan Heights to the Negev. We recorded the song as part of a three-song demo at Asbury Park's Wild Sound Studio in 1991, and it was one of the staples of our set list. (Come to think of it, most of FIP's songs dealt with my time in the army.)
Later on, I included it in my best-of-demo compilation, Everybody's in the Money.
Fast forward now to the mid- to late 2000s. Two marriages and two divorces behind me, attempting to navigate the dirty waters of the post-divorce dating scene. Two moves across the country and too many jobs—more often than not, for which I was overqualified and therefore underpaid. Missing my two daughters who were G-d only knew where on the planet. Bands and music going nowhere. Yeah, it was time to update the old lyrics for the new me.
Hide with no seek
Don’t know what to say
To scared to speak
Feeling weak
Hiding from the day
‘Cause I know I’m up a creek
The truth hurts, and I can’t take the pain
Thinking ‘bout how time slipped away from me
Glory daze gone down the drain
Wasted years
Crying over wasted years
Look at me
Finished high school with no diploma
Three colleges with no degree
Three years in the army
Like cold storage in a coma
Fighting an unseen enemy
Three kids from three marriages
Child support, divorce
Can’t get married, can’t stay married
Love fails, it’s just par for the course
Wasted years
Dying slow through wasted years
Love and sex
Social life goes on
From one girlfriend to the next
Today here tomorrow gone
Living off unemployment checks
And nothing ever gets done
What happened to all the dreams
And all the grandiose schemes
They all got wasted with the years!
Dead ends
Without any viable means
To reach my ends
Weekends
Playing the same old scenes
BSing with all my friends
Forty years old, for the first time on my own
Yeah, the freedom is priceless, if you can take being alone
Wasted years
Crying over wasted years
Wasted years
Dying slow through wasted years
Wasted years
Through the door go wasted years
Wasted years
No more, no wasted years!
©2023 The Hesh Inc.
What can I tell ya, it was a good vent. I even quoted my old slogan/band name in the third verse. I have no idea where this is going to go, if anywhere. It might be a good fit on the "Waitsian heartbreak opus" I had envisioned in the wake of my second divorce and my move from Los Angeles back to New Jersey. If I do, I will record it with the Hammond/Leslie going full blast, not the pale imitation provided by the Roland D-50 on the 1991 demo.
But it's a new year now. I am recording my music, and my New Year's resolution for this year is to play out more frequently and look ahead positively and optimistically. So a new version of this song, and the opus it could be part of, may or may not be likely in the near future. I offer both versions of this lyric as a slice of history, and a prayer that I never find myself in this situation again.