someone you know
Release Date: 6/00
Album: RARITIES VOL. 1; NEVEREST (Japanese release only)
Writer: ADAM MARSLAND
Lyrics:
You like to say you feel as if you know me
Why am I insecure
Should I be reassured that I mean something to you
I'll be listening here
If you have some more bones to throw me
And I don't know why
I kiss my wisdom goodbye
And I hope neither do you
I shouldn't call you every day
I should step lightly into the fray
I should be keeping my own counsel
So I won't tell you
What's driven to distraction
But it's someone you know
Someone you know
Someone you know
What follows is the meaning of my success:
I could love you if I loved you less
Before I make it known there's more than meets your eye
I've got to keep it cool, i've got to make it shy
You like to say that you like my directness
And to my surprise I've told you no lies
At least none that I know of
But it's a fact of life that giddy tongues get reckless
And the best laid plans become a bird in the hand
That you will let go of
Why am I not thinking down below
Why aren't you just wild oats to sow
Why am I asking you these questions
So I won't tell you who's given me to distraction
But it's someone you know
someone you know
someone you know
Adam sez:
A very obscure Cockeyed Ghost track, and a pivotal one. Lyrically, it's an an unusually straight up boy-girl unrequited love story coming from me, talking about the phenomenon of if you're really, really into a friend in a romantic way, the moment you tip your hand, you're dead. And of course, the more you're into someone, the harder it is not to let them know.
During the 1997 sessions for NEVEREST, the band attempted, half-heartedly, two slower songs that were designed to leaven the dense, mostly hard rock atmosphere of that album. One was an early version of "Falling Down the Hill" that was deemed too simplistic, and this song was the other. This was a big live favorite at the time and the main reason it never found its way onto an album is that no one in the band -- and that includes me -- liked it very much, and James Hazley loathed the song. So we cut a one-take basic track and then forgot about it.
In 1998, Big Deal made an agreement to have selected catalog and new releases come out in Japan on JVC/Victor, a major label there. NEVEREST and the forthcoming SCAPEGOAT FACTORY made the cut, and part of the deal was that we had to deliver bonus tracks for each one. This resulted in a miniature flurry of recording in Fall 1998 including two Japanese language versions of Cockeyed Ghost songs, after THE SCAPEGOAT FACTORY was finished but before it actually was released. During this time I think the band did some of its best recording. After having done THE SCAPEGOAT FACTORY tracks without Rob Cassell I was finally starting to come into my own as a vocalist and also our tracks and production were getting tighter.
For NEVEREST, there really wasn't much in the way of available material other than this song, so I dusted off the two inch and finished it. Rob Cassell obviously wasn't around anymore, so I did all his vocal parts and overall it was one of the better vocals I'd done up to that point. I also changed a few of the dumber lines in the song to slightly less dumb lines. Overall, because of its peculiar history, it has a blend of the qualities of both versions of the band...the Seattle-influenced rock sound of the early lineup and the more melodic, less frenetic later stuff.
I didn't like the song much in 1997, but ten years later I think it's a pretty cool song.