about
He Is Not:
We had a real hard time with this song, in fact making the guitars sound louder, in fact I had to go over to the garage and get out an electric and drop that though a Fender. Now it sounds about right!
Be Seeing You!
Dan
Nick's Liner Notes
"He is Not" is at the heart of my order of things.
That's about "the old man" who died in 2006 though it's not about him in any particular sort of way, excepting perhaps the line:
He left the room without making a sound
Nobody noticed till the orderly made his rounds...
That is true and particular to the old man (though I am sure also to many others who die in those "homes"). For the rest it's much more generic.
Somehow he just slipped out of time
Leaving only his remains behind
An odd assortment of odds and ends
Fingernails, toes, teeth and skin....
Those are pretty generally the remains of anybody. So the emphasis ends up being much more on the "not" and not on the "He."
You can't say that he moved on
Cause there's no place for him to be gone
He didn't fly high. He didn't sink low
No, he didn't have nowhere to go...
When one is no longer, one is NOT, and that's that.
Oh time is a mighty tide
It carries us far it carries us wide
It is the beating heart of the stars...
If you can still see'em you still are.
We should occasionally remember that.
BUT HE'S NOT.
OH HE'S NOT
AIN'T NO X GONNA MARK THE SPOT WHERE HE'S NOT.
That last bit--ain't no x--may, with its postmodern under erasure feel, be overly clever. But I still like it.
lyrics
He's Not
Somewhere in the world a man just dropped
Everything around him just stopped
He left the room without making a sound
Nobody noticed till the orderly made his rounds
But he's not.
Oh. Oh. He's not.
Ain't no X gonna mark the spot where he's not
Ain't no X gonna mark the spot where he's not
Somehow he just slipped outa time
Leaving only his remains behind
An odd assortment of odds and ends
Fingernails, toes, teeth and skin
Cause he's not.
Oh. Oh. He's not.
Ain't no X gonna mark the spot where he's not
Ain't no X gonna mark the spot where he's not
You can't say that he moved on
Cause there's no place for him to be gone
He didn't fly high, he didn't sink low
No, he didn't have nowhere to go
He's just not.
Oh. Oh. He's not.
Ain't no X gonna mark the spot where he's not
Ain't no X gonna mark the spot where he's not
Oh! Time is a mighty tide
It carries us far, it carries us wide
It is the beating heart of the stars
If you can still see'em you still are
But he's not.
Oh. Oh. He's not.
Ain't no X gonna mark the spot where he's not
Ain't no X gonna mark the spot where he's not
credits
from
The Tingles,
released March 23, 2011
Nick Tingle: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Percussion
Dan Tingle: Vocals, Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Bass, Banjo, Mandolin, Percussion
license
all rights reserved
