imagine you're dead
Release Date: 3/99
Album: THE SCAPEGOAT FACTORY
Writer: ADAM MARSLAND
Lyrics:
I used to care about what you thought
I still do, but I ought not
And though I won't change overnight
Now I know you were left and wrong
And I was right and right
I'm not gonna think like you
Gonna do as I say not as youíd have me do
And 'cos Iíd rather be happy instead
I'll imagine youíre dead
I used to see things through your eyes
Get the point
Rationalize
But there's still one thing
I can't explain away
Why am I happier today without you?
I'm not gonna let you poison my well
'Cos your good intentions pave the road to my hell
There's room for one person in my head
So I'll imagine youíre dead
You seem to believe
You've made up for traits I lack
Now I perceive
That opposites extract
And I won't look back
I used to think I needed you
To save me from rash things I might do
But now I've seen in retrospect
Wet blankets have the same effect on me
I'm not gonna be like you
Gonna do what I want
Not what you want me to do
And I don't want you to die,
That's not what I said
I'll just imagine youíre...
NO!
I'll imagine you're somewhere else
As happy as I am all by yourself
And if it helps bring peace on your head
You can imagine I'm
Dead.
Adam sez:
The second song on THE SCAPEGOAT FACTORY to deal with the recent and acrimonious breakup of the band (from whence also came the title). Like a lot of the songs on this album, there are a lot of conflicted emotions here, with a lyric about co-dependency, needing to kill someone off in your own head, and finally, realizing that carrying grudges hurts only yourself. This was the only SCAPEGOAT song that had been performed live prior to the album being recorded, with James Hazley on the drums, though Kurt does the honors here (in one of his finest performances, IMHO).
Robbie Rist plays the 12-string bass, which contributes to the Cheap Trick-like sound of the track. The bridge on this song is very peculiar, basically an attempt to make a bunch of disconnected chords fit together, and when I was about to junk it Robbie insisted "we can make it work" and crafted the bass line that helped tie it together. Like a lot of the songs on SCAPEGOAT, this is in an unusual key for a guitar-based song (it starts in Bb and then modulates to Db -- I think), and once again, led to some challenges in performing it.
The cluster of songs at the end of the album that seemed to be devoted to bashing unnamed ex-bandmembers may seem like a bit much. I agonzied over it at the time, and it's the reason behind the change of heart and emphatic rejection of bitterness that happens at the end of this song. But finally, I decided that as a songwriter, you try to write about what's really emotionally affecting you and make it as universal as you can. And I had really strong feelings about what happened that I needed to divest...keep in mind that around this time one of my ex-bandmates' wife had posted an entire website devoted to dissing me (without revealing that she was married to one of the principals), and then demanded that I link to it from my own website! (which I did, don't ask me why)
Once THE SCAPEGOAT FACTORY was finished I felt like I'd purged something really ugly and was in a different place as a person and as a songwriter. This song was a big part of that.
This song was recently used in the soundtrack to a Sci-Fi horror film! "Imagine You're Dead," get it?