Relatively Human from Circumstantial Evidence by Jacob Haller

When you're a musician, you end up from time to time having shows on weekday nights when you have to get up early to work the next day. The smart thing to do is, at the end of the show, just pack up all your stuff as quickly as you can, drive home, get everything out of the car, and go to bed -- that way you won't be in _too_ bad a shape the next morning.

But every once in a while when you get to the end of the night that's not what you want to do -- you want to hang out and talk to people, or go out and get some eggs, or whatever. And so you postpone going home, knowing that in the morning you'll regret it, but deciding that it'll be worth it.

And when you do that, most of the time, the next morning you wake up and it is really every bit as bad as you thought it would be, and you just have to drag yourself through the day.

But every so often, you get up the next morning, and you feel pretty terrible, all right, but you don't feel as terrible as you think you should. That feels like victory.

I started writing this song after a night like that, and then wasn't sure where to go with it and set the lyrics aside. Then, some months later, when I was looking at an upcoming four-shows-in-four-days batch of shows with some trepidation, it came to mind again and I finished it up.

The second verse refers to a nifty old time fiddle tune called 'Whiskey Before Breakfast'. It's a little shout out to my old friend Rachel, as that's one of the songs I would always request when she got her fiddle out.

We did a couple of takes of this song, but we ended up deciding the first take was the best, despite (or possibly because of) the fact that nobody was quite sure who was supposed to play when, or what order the solos were in, or how the song was supposed to end. To me it sounds like everyone's a little drunk (though I know they weren't) and it fits the song perfectly.

I left the ending the way it is because hearing it makes me laugh every time.

Tracklist

13.	Relatively Human	4:42

Lyrics

I went out last night, and I stayed out pretty late.
Now I feel relatively human, and that is relatively great.

I had gin for dinner, vodka for dessert.
Now I'm thinking whiskey for breakfast, I don't see how it could hurt.

I woke up in a strange place, guess that's where I went to bed,
But I'm feeling pretty good now, considering I probably should be dead.

Give me a cup of coffee, then pour me another five,
'Cause I'm feeling relatively human, but only 40% alive.

Credits

from Circumstantial Evidence, released November 11, 2011
Jacob Haller: vocals, piano
Natalie Markward: electric guitar
Chris Monti: electric slide guitar
Joe Auger: drums

License

CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. See the Creative Commons website for details.