I know my “short list” of “classics” may be getting long, but this is definitely one of them. There’s actually a story behind this one, and I’ll share it with you now. I had a girlfriend in high school, and one night she had a dream that she shared with me. To summarize: she being led through a graveyard, and on the tombstones were the names of people she loved. When she got to the final stone, her guide announced that this was the person she loved most of all, and when she leaned in to read the name…she woke up. I didn’t read into it much at the time, but a while after we had broken up, I thought back to that dream for some reason or another, and realized that my name hadn’t been on any of the tombstones. Maybe, I thought, maybe she wanted it to be my name on that final stone!
Odds are that that wasn’t the case, but that idea is precisely what this song is about.
file size: 1.65 MB
written: 1995
recorded: 1995
instrument: Casio keyboard
recording medium: cassette tape
album art: Kicking the Bucket
lyrics:
Sitting casting shadows
On a written page
Pen and paper promises
Fading with age
Tear-stained tenders left to dry
Out in the sun
And only now I see
She wanted me to be the oneReminiscing prospects
Of an empty past
Sorting out which dreams
Were never meant to last
Giving up the future
‘Fore today’s begun
And only now I see
She wanted me to be the oneTo make the world
Far better than it seems
To shut out all the nightmares
And awaken all the dreamsPoring over memories
Of yesterday
All the things I didn’t do
And didn’t say
Crying over what we had
What’s done is done
But only now I see
She wanted me to be the one
Too late now, I see
She wanted me to be the one