I Don't
Lyric
Look at us now,
How did we get from I do to I don’t?
So soon.
Was there a voice?
Something that knew you should say how you feel, but won’t.
And you’ve got form, so fill it in now.
Cut me down and chalk me up.
Unring the bells,
(Who’s the next in line.)
Don’t kiss or tell.
(When it will be your time.)
Break a solemn promise,
And another heart, then start again.
Over the line,
Thin as the patience that years strip away.
Each day.
Buried in time,
Born in contempt of familiar traits, I wait.
You’ve come full vicious circle,
Lost perspective on the way.
And in the end it’s just case of making up, (It’s all the rage now)
Things to help you on your way. (It’s all the rage now)
And in the end it’s just the truth inside one mind.
It’s just an and and not an or.
She said in church,
The sun shining down like a blessing from God, on high.
“The meaningless words,
The promise that breaks into pieces of hate, too late.
It’s just a signed piece of paper,
It’s just a lawyer’s fee away.”
Story
No-one will fail to know what this is about. Without reading the lyrics, they might well not get the belles/bells difference. It’s not that autobiographical and a subject that plenty of people will both understand and feel.
The music has been around since the late 90s, the chords very, very basic, but the idea would never go away. With it having an insane vocal range I thought it would never fly, but with a lot of practice and judicious harmonies we got there!
Dave, as he so often did, went away and added some stuff, which I’d never ever think of, the best of which is that amazing acoustic guitar line that starts at the beginning of verse two and that suddenly lifts the song.
For many years I thought it was going to be about a close friend who had gone through a truly horrible experience, the kind of thing you think only happens in things like Happy Valley, but I could never make it work and once the divorce idea came to mind it only took me two or three months to get the lyrics to a state I was happy with.