The Phoenix's Last Stand

from THE GOTHIC (songs written 1995-96, age 15-16) by Alex Reed

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about

My Dutch school had an exchange visit with an Italian school (during which I became madly infatuated with a girl named Francesca). When they were visiting, a bunch of us went out to a megaplex techno club that was super mainstream and kinda gross, where my experience was more or less what the Smiths describe in "How Soon Is Now?": went and stood on my own, left on my own, came home and wanted to die. I wrote this song that night in October 1995, and the prechorus was definitely inspired by the appoggiatura I'd heard that night when the club played (the then-ubiquitous) "Catch a Fire" by Haddaway.

lyrics

The Phoenix's Last Stand

Taken with a grain of salt
A grain of sand
I can now recall
The Phoenix's last stand
Behind the glass
A shelter for the tears
Another option
Unexplored appears
Waiting for the rain
To carry him once more
Quietly he closes
Yet another door

Another thousand years
Is really not that long
This is my last stand
And you did nothing wrong

Wings are broken
Move them anyway
Pigmentation gone
But that's okay
He will try to fly
Will not give in
But she has wrapped
Her arms beneath his skin
This at his request
They are so much the same
His smile is the final seal
He will not try again
Slowly he retreats
The infantry disbands
And hangs their heads to see
The Phoenix's last stand

credits

from THE GOTHIC (songs written 1995-96, age 15-16), released July 24, 2018

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Alex Reed New York, New York

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