Amsterdam

Here I sit with my head in my hands and tears running down my face. Here I sit, listening to the live recording i've listened to a thousand times over of 'New Dawn Fades' on repeat.  Never before in my life have I ever understood it more. Never so plainly has it ever been shown to me...

I never realized it before... How much you put into it... I never realized that it took all of you to show us what we wanted to see...most of us didnt see it at all... but it was killing you.

I remember the first time I heard a live recording of New Dawn Fades.  I sat there, with my eyes wide and my hands shaking and I cried. I cried and shook and tried to figure out how one person could feel so much... how a man i would never know could tell me so many things with a song that was only  4 and a half minutes long. You sounded more real in those four and a half minutes than you ever did to me. I felt like i could write you a letter... i could take a plane and there you would be, sitting in some smoke filled bar, sipping at a beer and scribbling in a black bound book... It broke my heart when I came back to my senses... You were gone long before my mother ever made the mistake that lead to my birth.

You were gone long before anyone else realized it.

And tonight....2 years later than most, it all became clear to me. all the questions i asked and all the thoughts that flooded my head. No one stopped to think about how it drained you of all you were...how much you gave and how much you had left. No one saw it killing you.  Just a song, they were just words. You were just a singer and it was just a band. Pretty sounds and a pretty voice with lyrics that flowed evenly. No one stopped to think that it all came from somewhere... that maybe you were saying something real.

I cant even begin to put this into thoughts that would be eloquent and beautiful but my heart is broken.

I know its stupid to feel as if I can relate. As if its the same. But some days, I feel like I could have understood what you were going through... with the fear of failing health and with love turning its back on you... with the whole world taking all you had and demanding more, even though it left you broken and drained... with one wrong turn that lead you to the jumping off point... Some days I wish I could have been there to tell you that it all evens out eventually... that even though the world is full of parasites... its not so bad when you put it all past you... I wish i could have been there to lie to you and tell you it was ok.


But I know you werent meant for this world. Too many things here werent right for you... we werent ready for what you had to give us...but i am thankful that we have what you did give us...and all these years later people finally took a step back and saw what a beautiful soul you were.




Right now my heart is broken and my head is clouded and all i can think of are the pictures i have of you, so vivid without a single trace of color... the few videos ive managed to find and each and every single sound you let us have.

Ill fade out tonight with your voice in my ears and in time I will have figured it out enough to explain it to the rest of the world, just how much your life meant to me.




-Joji