Running In Circles

Back in 2014, my band Burning Bush released its debut album Honesty in a Box (which hey you can listen to on the side over there!).  It's no coincidence this project began immediately following college graduation. 

After earning a math degree, my brain had some serious re-calibrating to do.  College, especially the last couple years, becomes incredibly narrow.  It's kind of like eating your favorite cereal every day for four years.  Now matter how much you liked it at the beginning, after awhile it just starts tasting like soggy cardboard.  You might even go so far as to develop weird food allergies to it.  Or diabetes.

Thankfully, I managed to graduate college without developing an allergy to math, but my brain and being had begun to protest this nonstop, single-subject binge diet.  It's as if the math part of my brain had gotten so incredibly strong that the rest of my brain and even soul had begun slowly deflating, kind of like if you only did bicep curls at the gym but never worked out any other muscle groups.  You might start looking kind of funny.

After so much study of one subject, I had started to feel pretty one-dimensional.  Music was a way to make me three dimensional again, to re-inflate my soul, breathing life back into the other oxygen starved parts of my mind and soul.  But the album was more than just some therapeutic mental re-calibration.  It was also a way to wrestle with the meaning of life.  

It's so easy to get caught up in routine, to go through life with your nose to the grindstone, and get to the end of it without having really lived.  With music, I felt like I could look that meaning straight in the eyes.  Not to mention have a lot of fun doing it at the same time.  Because you have to admit.  Music can be as joyful as it is powerful.

In my opinion, music is the highest form of communication.  Spoken word is great.  I love poetry.  I love prose (heck I wrote a blog dedicated to the stuff).  And you can get pretty far with words.  You can use inflection, word choice, writer's voice to convey an idea.  But when you pair those same words with the right music, the music takes on a-whole-nother dimension.  The music transports the words to a place mere words could never go.

This album was an attempt to harness that beautiful, mysterious, powerful force of music to make a positive contribution to this troubled world.  We've all listened to that song that gets us through the bad day, helps us celebrate the good one, or just slaps us sober and makes us think.  The hope was to have an album to inject some of those songs into the world.

As with most albums, there were songs that never made it on the record, mostly due to time constraints.  This is one of those songs.  It's a song that's always felt especially honest even to this day.  It's a song that definitely belongs on album number two.  But before album number two, you can listen to this acoustic demo.  The song is called Running in Circles.

Running in Circles

All words and music by Mark Chase

Running in circles

Trapped trying to get free

I’d rather drown in your ocean

Than swim in my own sea

And I’ll remember this

The love you’ve shown

No longer only yours

It’s part of my own

I’m sick

I need your medicine
I’m tired

Where do I begin?

When I’m down

And I could use a hand up

In Life

Running in circles, trying to get free

Running in circles, it’s so like me

Running in circles, the start’s the end

Running in circles, back to you again

Looking left and right

I’m wishing for the sky

I’d rather jump off your precipice

Than stand on my highest high

You promise to remember

Always recall

Your arms are outstretched

Before I fall

I’m sick!

I need your medicine
I’m tired!

Where do I begin?

When I’m down!

I could use a hand up

In Life

Running in circles, trying to get away

Running in circles, to the same old place

Running in circles, all confused

Running in circles, back to you

I’m sick!

I need your medicine
I’m tired!

Where do I begin?

When I’m down!

I could use a hand up

In Life