keep the sun
Release Date: 9/96 and 2000
Album: KEEP YOURSELF AMUSED and RARITIES VOL. 1 (demo version)
Writer: ADAM MARSLAND
Lyrics:
"It's a beautiful day" she said to me
My nerves are jangled
All my best intentions were mangled
Why is it every time I do what I want to do
It's never what I want to do
And all my windows have a smokestack view
I couldn't look away if I wanted to
And the voice inside my head says you're blowing it
You can keep the sun
I just want to have some fun
Turn me over I'm done
I just want to have some fun
And I swear
That I don't have a gun
But I swear I'd kill myself if I thought it would be fun
I'm seething with resentment
At every little bump in the pavement
And like you I feel it's no big deal
I can't help it it's just how I feel
And you make my choices seem so facile
It's just how I feel; it's no big deal
And the voice inside my head says you're blowing it
So many things that need doing
So many beautiful things to ruin
All I hear is the sound of dropping balls
I don't wanna be around when the next one falls
And the voice inside my head says you're blowing it
"It's a beautiful day" she said
Keep the sun and the endless summer
Keep the heat and the endless bummer
Keep the wild-eyed tempers flaring
I don't know the reason and I'm past caring
Over the hill where the night begins
The darkness hides a multitude of sins
So I pray that everything will keep
And just let me sleep
Adam sez:
The first couple of years in Cockeyed Ghost I was in conscious motion...going to shows, meeting people, playing, rehearsing, working. Some people saw energy and enthusiasm, others blind ambition and ego. The underlying motivations were a lot more complex and hard for me to understand and own up to, but I occasionally hinted at it in song, and "Keep the Sun" was a very personal song for me in that it acknowledged that I was always teetering on the edge of exhaustion and cracking up. It was my favorite song at the time I wrote it and said so when we debuted it live...at the same show as "At the Bookstore," which became far and away the fan favorite. The quoting of the Nirvana line was actually a way of taking some of the edge off the sentiments...it was meant as kind of a joke, although probably not taken as one.
This is one of only two songs that James Hazley sang on in the studio (the other is "At the Bookstore") and marks one of the first appearances on CD by Stew (credited by his real name, Mark Stewart), who takes over the rant at the end of the song.