I have a friend in Dallas going through some really, really hard times with his adult son relapsing in a very bad way the last few months.
My friend came to Austin for my gig recently and we had a little time to talk about it, but not much.
His wife reached out to me a few days ago and said, “I’m not sure what I am asking you to do, but maybe try to reach out to him more than usual. He’s not sleeping and I’m really worried about him”.
So I shot him a text and said, “Cigars Friday night at your house?” And he said yes. So I shot up to Dallas that night. We smoked cigars, talked about it all in detail.
We both equally have the curse of song lyrics occupying 90% of our brains, so when a snippet of a sentence in a conversation is the lyrics in a song, we’ll start singing it. At some point I said something and he launched into singing a song that I couldn’t place for a brief second. Then I remembered, “Oh he’s singing one of my songs”, but I still couldn’t place it. He was still singing and about to get to the chorus and I was scrambling with questions, What album of mine is this on? Is it on an album at all? If not, did I record a version of it or did he at some point?
He gets to the chorus and at this point we’re both singing this song. It’s crazy that we both remembered it. I realized, this song is not on an album and the last time I played it, was in a band in the 90’s with this very friend I am sitting with. That was almost 30 years ago since either of us had played this song. Our band was called Deep Rest. I know, cool right? I thought I was so cool when I came up with that band name and he thought it was so cool that he tattooed real big across his lower back. That band never released anything, but we had a ton of songs.
I said to him, do you think either one of us ever recorded it? I told him, in my head that he had recorded a solo version of it on his own at some point, but he didn’t think he had. Then the conversation shifted and we never spoke of it again that night.
We then took a drive to listen to Robert Ellis’ self-titled album with another cigar and then he was tired and wanted to go to sleep, which we were both grateful for. I decided to go ahead and drive back to Austin, because I was still wired.
The next day I got up and was doing my morning meditation and I recalled that song again and it was hard to finish my mediation before leaping to my computer to search for a recording of it and bam, got it! Luckily I had done a solo version of it to capture it back then, probably to share with him and the other members of the band.
A couple of things in this song that really hit me hard. One, is I mentioned my friend Frank. Frank was one of my best friends during my last couple of years of high school and we are still friends 40ish years later. We would regularly drive til sun up listening to music.
Second, I mention my friend PJ. PJ passed away recently. She was one of my best friends in high school, but I lost contact with her pretty quickly after high school as I was married and she had moved to Florida. I saw her one time after high school and I always regretted not maintaining a friendship with her. She was a rock for me when my dad died in ninth grade. I didn’t want to come out of my room and she came over and dragged me out of there and said, “Come on, we’re getting into the sunshine and talking a long walk and you are talking about this and I will listen.”
Thank you for listening.
Miss the Days (Written in the mid 90’s)
Words, Melody by Robert Steel
Music by Robbie Wilson
I miss the days with my friends, getting high
Saying hey man, play Stairway to Heaven when I die
Maybe sit around for a while
Countless hours music played, man I miss those days
So hey Frank, let’s go drive
With DIO on the radio, our minds wired
Remember when the nights were slow? I do
I miss the days with my friends getting stoned
Sayin I’ll live this town on my own
We were so brave in that little town
We set ourselves up, let ourselves down
Simple times I thought were hard
Can’t measure up a yard
To the miles of pain I’m feeling now
I’m thinking I need a friend or two
To help escape my pain come true
Just a simple, simple ruse is all I need of you
Hey PJ it’s been while since we’ve talked
Let’s go, take a real long walk through the park
Lay on the tornado slide
High on a bag of dime
Remember how we wasted time?
Man I do, I miss you
Simple times I thought were hard
Can’t measure up a yard
To the miles of pain I’m feeling now
I’m thinking I need a friend or two
To Help escape my pain come true
Just a simple, simple ruse is all I need of you
I miss the days with my friends of yesterday
Endless times we had are not so endless anymore
What a beautiful story.