ghost of a child
Release Date: 6/02
Album: 232 DAYS ON THE ROAD
Writer: ADAM MARSLAND
Lyrics:
Standing on top of a mountain
Blow through my bones
Funny how with the wind
You're never totally alone
I've got a secret
I will not disclose
Not even when I lie broken
Where the juniper blows
Ghost of a child are you watching me
Do you see that justice is done
I'm the devil you don't know that did you in
One eye taken when the young kill the young
Five careless seconds
On an empty street
You become Quasimodo
And oblivion's sweet
I will rejoin the living
By my final act
A speeding car brought me here
Now I'm throwing myself back
Ghost of a child
We were innocent
But in wine there is truth
All my decisions were accidents
I guess that's the division of youth
Hey hey hey
Adam sez:
The second song on 232 DAYS ON THE ROAD to date from the pre-Big Deal days, this was originally performed as "Murdered Child" (with Rob Cassell singing lead) but I decided the song was gruesome enough as it was and modified the title. The rather morbid lyrics are about committing suicide over remorse from a drunk driving accident. Yuck. But I like the mood of the track and I probably wanted to cut the song just so I could play the Glenn Campbell-inspired guitar solo.
There was an idea for a Cockeyed Ghost EP called "Bleak House" after THE SCAPEGOAT FACTORY which would have included this song, "The Foghorn" and a few others that had a similar downbeat, rainy-day mood. I like that kind of thing, and it would have been an interesting thing to try, but after Big Deal folded, it was hard enough cutting another album let alone try that kind of experiment.
I came up with the musical idea while hiking in the mountains, which explains a lot of the nature imagery. I wrote the actual lyrics to this song at a Carrow's Restaurant on a Sunday morning in 1994. The waitress asked me what I was doing and I said "I'm writing a song," "what's it called?" "'Murdered Child". She looked rather upset at that and I do believe a different waitress brought me my food.