Pay Phone from Insomniac by Brandon Brooks
This song was inspired by a quote from the 2019 videogame Disco Elysium:
"Congrats – you're sober. It will take a while for your body to remember how to metabolize anything that isn't sugar from alcohol, so you're going to be pretty ravenous soon. Eat plenty. You can expect your coordination and balance to improve in a couple of weeks. In two months, you might start sleeping like a normal person. Full recovery will take years, though. It’ll be depressing. And it’ll be boring. Don’t expect any further rewards or handclaps. This is how normal people are all the time."
I am not an addict, but I could be. Not to be dramatic, but it's in my blood, and every experience that I have had with any substance has been negative. I prefer being sober, and in a way that feeds my addiction to sadness even more: I'm SO sad that I refuse to ignore it! It works somehow, I don't know how my brain works.
Anyways, the song is about the struggle to fight for simple normalcy. It doesn't have to be about a substance at all, it can be about anything that haunts you.
This song also begins my refrain of "The Hardest Part is Falling", which recontextualizes the other songs on the album. I felt like it was a good theme to keep up, especially once I realize how I could tie the entire album together.
Tracklist
| 9. | Pay Phone | 4:02 |
Lyrics
Verse 1:
I never learn.
How many times
Have I even tried?
Who will
Take my place
When I return?
Young,
And wide awake,
And starry-eyed;
Afraid of no one,
Hungry for nothing.
Verse 2:
It's in my veins,
A sweet and cherry red,
And I want it out.
It fills my head
With static,
And it fucking aches,
And if I feed it
Even once,
It'll hold me down.
A sad and
Sorry affair,
But so it goes.
Reality feels
So wrong,
When you're all alone,
And you're
Pressing the numbers from memory
On the pay phone.
I'm cleaning
Out the rooms,
Cuz they're all I know.
Addicted to misery,
Left with
Nothing to show.
Chorus:
I think I heard
Forever is a long, long time,
And loneliness is
Better as a concept,
But I know they put
The Devil in the details, kid,
Cuz all I got for trying
Was a complex.
And I'll still be
Fucking sober till the day I die,
Cut myself dancing
On the straight edge.
I promise, in the morning,
I will live my life,
But only if
Forever isn't like this.
The hardest part is falling.
