TheHaunting

Help me not to think so far away
When I was still a friend to her
Something still happens
Something still stirs inside of me
I feel the pain like a falling rain
Soaking down into all my sensibilities
Flooding those places
That she took from me

Help me to get through the days
When she reaches me
The way she does
And I think of her
Just the way she was
I can't forget how much she meant
Anymore than I can disregard
The loss I feel
She may be gone
But this loves just as real

Time is like a ghost
That haunts a host
Of loved ones and their friends
But no one really dies
Unless you forget about them

Help me please
To find the keys
To unlock these doubts and understand
How she slipped through the hour-glass
Like unmeasured sand
We wear our lives upon our sleeves
As we weave through the material
Our stitch in time
But she left unfinished
Her special design

Time is like a ghost
That haunts a host
Of loved ones and their friends
But no one really dies
Unless you forget about them

Help me not to think so far away
When I was still a friend to her
Something still happens
Something still stirs

Doc's Notes:

This is another song written shortly after
Peggy and I arrived in Waldwick, New
Jersey from Colorado in the spring of
1987. I may have brought some of it's
beginnings with me, writing in my head on
the long drive out, but it was finished up in
a day or two. I wrote it for my little sister
Pamela who was killed in a hit a run
accident on Route 17 in New Jersey
several years earlier.

Not only did Mark help me work out the music but also another very close musical friend of ours
Steve "White Pants" Jordan. Both of them
knew Pam, my sister. I don't think Steve
was overly enthusiastic about the subject
matter, but he was very helpful, I don't
blame him for his reticence as it was a
very personal and heartfelt song to work
out all the way around. Mark's melody is
wonderful. It is not depressing, instead it
is light and airy with a great counterbalance
to the words. I was impressed
how it walked a narrow line between an
uplifting and sad state, its simplicity
maintaining a soft tension to the story.
Mark's harmonies are surreal.

It's dangerous for an artist to train
themselves not to feel even as an escape
from personal hurt. When you get to the
point where you choke down your feelings
you eventually take yourself to a place
where you can no longer feel. You
become numb to the pain. When
someone who works in the arts can't feel then they work from craft, not emotion.
They stop being artists and simply
become technicians.