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Daily Lyric: JRZguyinLAinJRZ

(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.

Detail of "JRZguyinLAinJRZ" - original AI art by The Hesh Inc.
It’s one world to another / To the Shore from the Coast.

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.

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