In the period after Rosalind and I had split up, I wrote this song. I subsequently lost the lyrics and tried to piece it together from what I remembered. Years later I found part of the song written in one of my notebooks. This version is a combination of all that, but it’s still not what I originally wrote, which is a bit frustrating. And in any event, it doesn’t really reflect our relationship. But it’s fun to sing.
Lyrics
This Side of the Border
It’s a tangled affair
Leaves us both dangling in the air
Where do we go from here
Why should we care
I remember the clarity
I once felt watching you watching me
All I see now’s a vacancy
All you see is my stare
I hear what you say
I just don’t see it that way
These things never work like they oughta
You’re at home in the pines
I prefer the old mines
One finds this side of the border
Just this morning I wandered back
To that shack where our love jumped the track
Was it something your listening lacked
Or something I didn’t say
There’s supposed to be growth from pain
But as I walked that familiar terrain
I got caught in a driving rain
That washed our footprints away
All the bridges we crossed
All the ways that we lost
Now delusion’s divorced from disorder
The old house looks so near
You just can’t get there from here
That’s clear this side of the border.
Seems out dreams have gone bust somehow
And I know you don’t trust me now
But I think that we must allow
Life to lead us away
This decision was hard to make
This division is harder to take
I can see you had much at stake
And I had so much to say
I thought I’d be free
Just how dumb can one be
I carry with me all the signs of a slaughter
You keep calling my name
As if I’m to blame
For the pain this side of the border