(i.e., Jersey guy in LA, in Jersey)
Well I’m shuffling through the Texas sand
My brain’s in Mississippi
I’m stuck inside of Mobile
With these Memphis blues again
They say nobody ever leaves LA
But I’m headed back to Jersey
I may very well be back
But I don’t know how or when
I fly through the dark night
LAX to Atlanta
Toward some kind of new morning
I hope will dawn
I try hard to sleep
But my eyes stay wide open
I get through this restless flight
With barely a yawn
And the boys from the Moshav are singing about angels
How they watch over me when I come and I go
Am I doing the right thing, have I made the right decision
All I can say is—I just don’t know.
Another hour in the air
Up the eastern seaboard
A panoramic view
Of the Albemarle Sound
Ten minutes later, I drop below the clouds
There’s AC to Sandy Hook
Trees stripped bare below me
And there’s that white stuff on the ground
Newark comes up fast
I got what I wanted
All the cars and pavement
Are encrusted with ice
I gave up the sun
And the love of good people
For the sake of ambition
Against better advice
And through it all the Moshav boys are singing about angels
How they watch over me when I come and I go
Have I done the right thing, have I made the right decision
All I can say is—I just don’t know.
Back to the house
Where I have such a history
New people, new characters
Old memories, old ghosts
I finally crash
And I sleep off the transition
It’s one world to another
To the Shore from the Coast
First Friday night
And the candles are burning
I stand alone watching
And I dissolve into tears
What have I accomplished
By returning to this old haunt
What have I done
By coming back here???
And I can hear the Moshav boys singing about angels
How they watch over me when I come and I go
Is this the right thing, is this the right decision
I take a hard look, and the answer is No.
And the words of the Psalms talk about angels
How they watch over me when I come and I go
From the city by the sea to the city of angels
Which is the right place for me—I think now I know.
(Baby I’m coming home
Daddy’s coming home
Can you ever forgive what I thought I had to do to live
Baby please let me come home.
My precious child, I’m coming home
Your Abba’s coming home
Can you let me into your heart after all the time we spent apart
Baby please let me come home.)
©2023 The Hesh Inc.
This is the "bookend" to my song "JRZguyinLA," which was about the cautious optimism I felt when first moving to Los Angeles in 2003. This one is decidedly less upbeat, as I wrote it almost immediately after returning to the Jersey Shore some three and a half years later. I moved back because my job prospects appeared more promising on the East Coast than what I had available to me on the West. But when those prospects didn't pan out right away—and it took me over another year until something did come my way—I realized right away what a colossal mistake I made. And the worst part of it all was being away from my beloved daughter. Of course I would be no good for her if I wasn't able to work, but being so far away from her opened up a chasm in my heart as big as the continent I had crossed. And as soon as the Sabbath candles were lit that first Friday night back east, I made up my mind to move back to LA. That did not happen for another four years ... and it too was not successful.
Whereas "JRZguyinLA" is the opening track to my projected album about my time in LA, "JRZguyinLAinJRZ" is the closing track, in which the songs' narrator and protagonist, having endured the loss of the love of his life while in California, returns to New Jersey to try and find a way out of his pain. Musically, it has a midtempo, melancholy groove not unlike Moshav's song "Malachim" (referenced in the song's refrain), about a father wishing his son safe travels as he prepares to undertake a large voyage. It was very much on my mind when I set out on my own voyage ... only now I was the father, compelled to become an absentee.
May all these wanderings and exiles end soon.