Lyric of the Week: SUCH FRIENDS

He’ll praise me to the skies and say I’m great

He’ll laud my talent and recommend my skill

He’s on the level and he plays it straight

I believe he’ll come through when he says he will

But somehow his big bright promises slip and slide

All his big plans fall into a deep, deep hole

He talks to other people on the side

And when I confront him he goes into spin control.

Such friends I have, turning their eyes away

Sticking their noses where they don’t belong

Running their mouths not aware of what they say

No idea that what they do can be wrong

With friends like these …

She offered to help when I was up a creek

Bailing me out so I could keep my ride

She kept me hanging for week after week

And then she couldn’t be found, as if she up and died

It was her honor to help, she proudly declared

But then she bailed herself out, leaving me in the lurch

Something about money just makes people weird

And their much-vaunted honor is befouled and besmirched.

Such friends I have, going back on their word

Turning their backs when I need them most

Putting up fronts, getting bizarre and absurd

Taking sides and giving up the ghost

With friends like these …

Who needs enemies?

I feel so at ease

With such friends as these

I ask you, who needs enemies?

This one goes silent when she hears my name

That one doesn’t bother to pick up the phone

This one screens calls and plays silly games

That one hears my voice and barely hides his groan

This one says he’ll be there when I’m feeling pain

Then when I try to reach him he’s never at home

That one has no problem to call up and complain

But if I’d do the same she’d wish I’d leave her alone

Such friends I have, gone like the wind

Never around when push comes to shove

Crying to me when their knees get skinned

But nowhere to be found when I need some love

With friends like these …

©2025 The Hesh Inc.

With friends like these ...

Everybody has these types of "fake friends." Sometimes is just takes a little longer till they unmask themselves by some sort of action or inaction. These are real people who had been in and out of my life. They may recognize themselves. Those who are not like this are my real friends. Don't be fake. Fake friends like these earn themselves a special place in hell, near the hypocrites. Musically, I imagine a vibe similar to John Mayer's "No Such Thing." (Not that I was ever much of a John Mayer fan, but some songs have a way of getting under your skin.) I wrote it sometime in 2006 or 2007 when I was back in New Jersey after my first spell in Los Angeles, barely scraping by working as a limousine driver. I was pacing nervously near a baggage carousel at Newark Airport, waiting for an important phone call from such a friend who promised some help to get out of the unsatisfactory economic predicament I was in, which never came. It was just the culmination of a series of such disappointments that had been piling up over the preceding few months. Fortunately I got out of that dead end, but more these types of friends outed themselves over the years, and their actions are written in my book forever.