old friend fade
I wish you well, anyway. A song about fading away from old friends, for now.
Today, I released a new song about feeling old friendships naturally fade away. You get busy, our interests change, we start a family, move away…and social media just doesn’t feel the same as seeing each other in person.
I released it as I normally do, on Bandcamp, streaming platforms, and shared it on social media. After a year of releasing music this way, I decided to try something new: what if I also released my songs on Substack, with the lyrics and context about why I made them?
(phone ringing)
It's probably been too long, huh
(we're sorry...)
OK...
Wow
(you have reached a number that has been disconnected)
This was an excuse I imagined, conveniently. Something to dissuade me from calling an old friend. “Do they even have the same number?” It was also fun to sample, and get a bounce going.
They say old friends fade
I guess I got in the way
Or somethin' unsaid
Got in our head and twisted the pain
Rain checks and one line texts
It's all the same
Either way, we're switchin' lanes
It’s easy to make up reasons why friendships fade away, quietly. Was it something I said? (or didn’t say?) Maybe we both got busy, trading rain checks to meet up another day. Or is it car-culture, we go from point A to B, stuck in a routine…In any case, with years since we last talked, it feels like we moved on without saying it directly.
Now we're movin' on
Singin' "I Used to Love H.E.R."
Remember everything we had in Common
Shared sentiments
Quotin' movies and songs
To get along, it was effortless
We'd fast-talk and finish each other's
Yeah, we'd finish each other's
Every friendship has their shared moments. That one time you sang what would become your favorite song, loud, off-key, and making up some of the words. Or the movie you quote for decades, delivering the line at the perfect time, “it’s only a flesh wound” and “don’t call me Shirley.” I remember one friendship, we didn’t say much outside of singing 90’s Hip hop together, so this was my nod to Common.
Sometimes we’d get in a loop, talking over each-other so fast, we’d just overlap. In writing this, I wanted to leave space for the other person (“we’d finish each other’s…”), waiting for them to finish my sentence for me, anticipating what I’m about to say and meeting me there. With most people, that can feel like being cut off, annoying - but with a best friend, it feels like having wings.
Uh Well, well
Well, well
Tell me that you're doin' well
I just wanna see you well
I hope that you're feelin'
Well, well
I felt so uneasy about this chorus. It felt…too simple. But every time this part of the instrumental came up, I sang the same words: no matter how hard I tried to change them. I think it was meant to be this way - sincere, straight-ahead…just, I hope you’re well.
The number in my phone is fine
Truth is, I never pick up the line
I'd rather have this conversation up in my mind
Make up excuses how not to try, like
The time in Taipei
Work today
The moon phase and astrological signs
Alright, this is where I start to get self-critical. They say it takes two, and that phrase is so annoying to hear when you’re in the middle of whatever perceived fight, disagreement, or distance…but it’s usually right. My fantasy of their number changing and being disconnected isn’t true after all, the number in my phone works just fine, if I’d just pick up and dial. I bet you’d probably answer, wouldn’t you?
But no, I make up excuses like the timezone, how I don’t want to interrupt you at work, or how we’re in mercury retrograde again. What am I so afraid of?
America is Online
Still countin' the minutes from free CD's
Like all we got is time
Dial-up and I'm flyin' over streams
You know we hide behind the screens
Just to curate how we're seen
We share glimpses of life
Count up the likes
Double-tap and keep walkin'
Somehow it still feels like nobody talkin'
With the phones in our face
We keepin' on pace
We sidestep and scroll on
Afraid that we'll say somethin' real if we talk
So can we talk
No, can we talk
No, it’s not a CD. In my memory, it’s a floppy disk, but who wants to rhyme “floppy”? In thinking about how we connect today, I had a flashback to my first moments online. My brother and I ran up a $700 phone bill by having our modem connect to a long-distance AOL number. Back when we measured our time online by the minute, dialed-up, watching pixels load line-by-line.
Anyway, not to date myself too far back. Now, it feels weird online. We share postcards (glimpses of life), get notified of Likes, and in most cases, just move on silently. Even worse, we lurk and don’t engage at all - consuming Stories at a distance, without saying anything. How did we get here? Are we just afraid of what we’ll say if we actually talk?
The song ends with me dialing the number again, talking myself up “number in my phone is fine…” and hoping the person answers this time. I thought about calling my actual friends and asking if they wanted to be in on the song, their voices answering “hello?” “hey!” one by one, to finish on a high note. But the fact that I didn’t do that, and leave it hanging on an open ringing tone, says something too. Maybe I’m not ready to revive every old friendship, and maybe there’s something new out there, for them, too.
🦋
Credits
Produced by Halibab Matador (Alban Murenzi). Check out his new solo album, Souvenirs!
Mix/master and vocal arrangement by the amazing Deya Records and Angel Vergara in Mexico City. 🇲🇽 I met Deya and Angel in 2022 and they encouraged me to record and release my first song. They’ve mixed and mastered every one of my songs since!
Written and performed by me.
Thanks for listening.