Baby, you used to be so original I couldn’t hold a candle to your homegrown ideas Always direct, never subliminal You showed me your heart and said it all comes from in here I was so inspired by the things you used to do You knew just what you wanted and you weren’t afraid to kick some butts Those are the things I loved about you You flew in the face of everything when I didn’t have the guts And in the sweet summer nights under the carnival lights I knew I was so in love with you You showed me there was more than all I saw around me A whole other universe An island of music in a stormy sea of noise I wanted to get lost in your universe Washed away in the sounds of your chords and your voice
Then came the day I was severed from you, girl I tried so hard to reach you but you went on without a clue But when you sang your song it was heard round the world Well babe, you didn’t know it but I was so proud of you I was stuck to the place I was sitting in I knew I’d come back to you but I didn’t know when While defending the place I was living in I wouldn’t stop talking about how I knew you “back then” I held out my hopes like holding onto the ropes A lifeline in a sea of uncertainty It pulled me through the confusion that surrounded me I knew I’d come back to your universe A world of harmony where I could find my peace I needed to get lost in your universe Where raging chaos could finally cease I went alone unguarded down the old mine shaft But all the gold has so long ago been taken And all I find is precast parts when I go looking for fine craft That faith that saved me for so long has been shaken There was a time I’d drop everything I’d be doing Just to catch your every whispered word But now I don’t stop anymore, I keep going It seems all your heroes are unsung and unheard I see you coming up the street but you can’t see me We walk right past each other without a word You seem to regret the day you ever found me But I’m lost in your universe Living for a world that no longer exists Lost in my New Jersey universe I hung on for so long and now I come back to this Lost in your universe It doesn’t make sense to stay here but somehow I still do Lost in this New Jersey universe Everything may have faded but I still love you
©2007 The Hesh Inc.
Track 7 from my album Soul In Exile 2: Jersey Shore Baby is about the disenchantment I felt after living on the Jersey Shore for several years. Here, for a period of 12 years, I had been all but pining for this place, yearning (I hate that word, really) to move there and become part of the local scene. Then I finally did it, and it was a mixed blessing. The place itself really became the set piece, the mise en scène if you will, of my artistic endeavors, but the cast of characters often came up lacking.
On the album, the song comes in on the same organ chord that ended the preceding tune, the instrumental "Beach Town in the Off Season," which wordlessly painted a musical panorama of the scenery. "Lost In Your Universe" zooms in from the sweeping view of the shoreline into the streets and the relationships that occur there. Details such as "I see you coming up the street but you can’t see me/We walk right past each other without a word/You seem to regret the day you ever found me" were really based on incidents involving people I knew at the Shore, but by the end of the song, the words are less about specific people than about the Shore itself, personified.
In his review of the album for The Aquarian Weekly, Shoreworld columnist John Pfeiffer writes: "'Lost In Your Universe' [is] a balladeering tune in the vein of Warren Zevon with a little John Mellencamp's 'Small Town' vibe complete with outstanding guitar work courtesy of Barry Siegfried. And true to the theme Heshy sings grimly, 'It doesn’t make sense to stay here, but somehow I still do. Lost in this New Jersey universe, everything may have faded, but I still love you.'"