PERFECT RING from American Dream by This Mad Desire

When I was in high school in Thunder Bay for my final year (having moved there from Winnipeg), I somehow formed a band with some cool local musicians (in my high school), and we started working on my early songs.

Eventually one of the members got his own apartment with some other young woman. (Just as roommates!)

One sad day, that roommate approached me with a poem that was the final writings of her friend who had very unfortunately killed herself. The roommate was hoping I'd set this to music.

After long deliberation, I did. I was sixteen! We performed it at some high school events.

Fast-forward several years and I was in Manitoba on a Beaver bus (like a Greyhound) from Winnipeg to Lockport. While leafing through an old anthology of Leonard Cohen's poetry (that was my mother's), I came across these lyrics/this poem and came to realize that Leonard Cohen's words were identical to the final writing of this poor teenager who killed herself.

I still loved the song and eventually recorded it as it was always one of my favorite songs that I had written.

Jim Perry, who plays drums on this recording, was taken from us far too early, in 2017, and I decided to include this song in tribute to both of these people whose lives touched me.

As a side note, Gerald Taylor plays bass on the recording and he was the original bassist I worked with on this song back when it was first created back in Thunder Bay.

Given the origins of this song and the nature of this recording, I've decided to give any and all profits from it to different mental health and suicide prevention organizations in North America.

The music of Hamilton, Ontario-based Mackenzie Kristjon. Like "Neil Young on David Bowie drugs". For more info, please contact macsonfire@gmail.com

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