Flashback:
So it was sometime in the spring of 1998 (I think) and Chopper and I are doing what we had done for so many years in the past, and that's putting a song together. The band we started in 1984, First Light, was in its last year of existence, but we still had that creative spark that had generated so many of the songs that people had come to know and love. This particular tune was a combination of music Chopper had come up with and lyrics that I wrote. We had done these things separately, but when I went over to Chop's that day and he played me what he had, I was like hey I've got these lyrics I think might work for this, and it just so happens that they fit like a hand in a glove! (I love it when that happens) We didn't know at the time it was the last song we would write together for many many years.
At that point in time our home recording technology was pretty basic, a 4-track cassette deck and a Boss DR-550 drum machine, but we laid it down in the living room and just kept it moving, thinking we would get back to it soon and clean it up and add this and that, but that never happened. What you're hearing now is basically the way it went down that day, with Chop on bass and me on guitar and vocal. I want to note that my voice sounds a little rough like Joe Cocker or somebody like that, because it was prior to my having surgery on my vocal chords to have nodes removed, caused by all the years of singing, but I think it adds character (yeah right)
Anyway, the tape sat in a box in storage for a couple of decades and change, and hadn't seen the light of day until one day I was digging around in the basement and came across it. The song is called "What I Think" and what really strikes me is that the words I wrote over 20 years ago seem to fit in these times we're living in right here and now.
At least that's what I think.
Los
What I Think
I think -
there has really got to be some kind of life on Mars
What kind of ego does it take to think we're the only thing living out here among the stars
When we look at the complete picture, once our little grain of sand is gone
What difference will it really have made?
Things and time will still go on
I think -
there's a major significance in what we're experiencing weather-wise
It's time to take a look around and for once in our short existence open up our eyes
The effect we've had on our planet is almost unbelieveable
Trying to overcome what we have done is what we face
I think -
everybody oughta maybe start thinking about getting together
How can we ever add it up if all we ever do is take away?
We can hurt and kill each other for little or no reason
Trying to figure out what we're all about is just too intense
At least that's what I think
What I think
Gonna tell you what I think
That's what I think
(but hey that's just my opinion)
(you know what I'm saying?)
(yeah)
