"We See" - Lyrics for an unrecorded song

     "We See" was written in November of 2019, only a few weeks before the Coronavirus pandemic's first infections became news. In many ways, it was a different world then; in other ways, nothing much has changed at all. I can't even remember for sure which mass shooting had taken place around that time, spurring me to write this particular song. Mark Darvill and I had written a handful of songs around that period, however, and I remember being hesitant about this one, though I shared it with him at the time. It felt exploitative in a way to make a song out of such suffering, so I left the music unfinished. However, as time has gone on, this particular aspect of life in my home country has, sadly and frustratingly, continued to be a consistent facet of American life.

    So it is not with pleasure but with regret that I share with you the lyrics of a song I wrote two and a half years ago about the rash of mass shootings plaguing the U.S., because nothing has changed. Not yet anyway. What with recent events in Uvalde and the July 4th parade shooting (and less-noteworthy-because-fewer-casualties shootings occurring with regularity elsewhere), maybe ... maybe somehow, somewhere, in someone, something will start to change. And the grammatical premise of this song will no longer be accurate.

    The image featured here is from a painting by my father, Vin Scheihagen, and according to him, is simply titled "Gesture #1"; it would have been painted perhaps as long as 20 years ago, so the painting itself was not inspired by the events that motivated the writing of the song.

    

    I may one day finish the recording of this song, even if as a basic demo; I had begun recording a version of the song but was unsatisfied with it and it remains unfinished.