where's my best friend
Release Date: 3/99
Album: THE SCAPEGOAT FACTORY
Writer: ADAM MARSLAND
Lyrics:
Where's my best friend?
The one I stayed up late with
The one things were going great with
Disappeared
No more days to spend
Kicking it around and laughing
'Cos now she's telegraphing
Her intentions loud and clear
She said she thought it would be best for me
If she was secessed from me
It's the one thing obsessing me
But it's enough to tear my world down
Justice is served
In many ways I got what I deserved
Because my mind was always elsewhere
But this I swear:
I've got no hard words to chew on
Just pedestals to put you on
And that's rarely something I would own up to
Where's my best friend?
Lonely and uninspired
I didn't quit, I was fired
From a job I didn't do well
No more lying in bed
Shooting aliens at leisure
A little legal search and seizure
But now itís all blown to hell
Moving on
For every good thing got
There's one more good thing gone
And it might be the thing
That you were happily trapped in
From this point on
I'll live better remembering the
Precious things Iíve lost
I guess that's why I had to let it happen
She said she didn't want to bother me
Maybe I needed a lobotomy
Losing her I lost a lot of me
And the remainder isn't worth much
Justice is served
In many ways I got what I deserved
But I'm sorry that it happened this way
And though it's a cliche
I couldn't phrase it any other way
'Cos you were the best thing
That ever happened to me
In my whole life
Goodbye
Adam sez:
A real departure for the band with its rootsy sound, and also a sign of what was to come on LUDLOW 6:18, "Where's My Best Friend" is one of the few straight love songs I've written in the last ten years, albeit expressing a lot of conflicted emotions. It was written for my then sometime-girlfriend Yuko Matsuda after a breakup. Our relationship was more one of buddies than of lovers, and the song reflects that.
Most of the backing vocal harmonies were by Robert and I, with Robbie Rist and Lisa Mychols coming in at the end. Robbie also contributed the distinctive bass guitar on this song, as he did on much of the album. It was a stretch for me vocally -- I was starting to sing in clear voice again after years of mostly using the rock voice -- and also as a guitar player. The awesome guitar tone is courtesy of Steve Refling's gorgeous Gretsch guitar. What a treat it was playing that thing.
Popular after the album came out, I HATED playing this song live because it's on acoustic guitar, it modulates about three times and there's about 100 barre chords in it, plus the melody was impossible to sing, and there were all those harmonies.
The one thing that kills this song for is the third verse, specifically the "lobotomy" line. Unless you're the Ramones, you should never use this word in a song. This was under consideration for DAYLIGHT KISSING NIGHT and I actually went to a great deal of trouble figuring out an edit of the song that completely skipped the third verse. My position was that much as I liked the song it would not go on the album if that verse stayed. It wound up getting dropped, anyway.