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Brain
Freeze
I
try to talk, but my tongue turns numb
I walk, but begin to fall down
This feeling I have for you
Oh there’s nothing that I could do
A
plan runs round in my head
For us to at least be friends
I want to speak my mind
But I’m worried, would you mind
If
angelic baby
If I may say
You’re the most lovely…
No I can’t say that!
One
day comes as one day goes by
Still can’t locate the nerve that makes a smile
I get worked up and swear next time
But when I see you, I change my mind
All
day long, your thought bombards my brain
This daydreaming is costing me my grade
Why can’t I just walk up to you
Like so many other guys do
And say…
Angelic
baby
May I say
Your eyes are like the skies stars
No that sounds so lame!
If
only
You felt the same
Well maybe someday
Maybe someday
For
now I’ll
Just sit here and dream
My whole life away
As I pull out my hair
Dreaming of you
Thinking of me
The
thought was beautiful
The thought was fun
But now I realize the dream is gone
A cruel cruel scheme love pulled on me
Oh
naïve heart
I let you lead
And now you’re crushed and suffering
I should have know
I’m so sorry
Story about Brain Freeze
When
I first started writing Brain Freeze, I wanted to
try to put into words the frustration I felt from being
in love and not being able to get myself to do anything
about it. The
words to this song came super easy for me. Within about the first 30 minutes, I had already written the
first two verses, the first chorus, and the first two
lines of the third verse.
Then I got tired and ended up falling asleep on
the couch in the bonus where I was writing from.
Three hours later, I woke up and wrote two more
lines, completing the third verse.
I then quit for the day because I had to go eat
and finish reading some short story… my homework for a
class I had to go to later that night.
The next day, Wednesday, September
10, 1997, I went to school again, Saddleback College in
Mission Viejo, and ended up working on another song—Hanging On. I wrote
most of it that morning, and finished it later that
afternoon. Later
that evening, I pulled out Brain
Freeze and started working on that again. Nine minutes later, I thought I was done.
I had finished the 4th verse and the
last chorus: All
day long, your thought bombards my brain…
Your eyes are like the skies stars / No that sounds so
lame. But
I questioned whether I was really done; I felt I wanted
to add more dimensions.
So I read the lyrics and sang the tune in my
head, and I was then sure I wanted to keep going with
the song. I
was uncertain as to what to write next or how the tune
would go, but I thought up something quick and started
to write. As
I wrote the new part, I wasn’t sure I really liked the
new tune, and felt the new lyrics were too weak.
So about 20 minutes later, I stopped writing.
The new part bugged me.
Giving in to my frustrations, I pushed Brain Freeze aside and,
over the next two years, moved on to other songs. Because it was so easy to write, I didn’t take Brain
Freeze too seriously.
But when our show at Chain Reaction arrived, the
song somehow ended up on our set list.
It was at that point I realized I had to face the
music, and finish the song.
Chain Reaction was our first real
club show. We
had played lots of little shows before that, even the
Sunset Strip’s legendary Los Angeles Whisky, but Chain
Reaction was the first show we were actually officially
scheduled and advertised to play at, and had real
tickets for. As
our show approached, I began to think of potential
lyrics for Brain Freeze again.
Two nights before the show, as I was brushing my
teeth, getting ready for bed, the lyrics for the intro
to the song’s ending popped in my head: If
only / You felt the same / Well maybe someday / Maybe
someday. I
wrote those lines down, and then went to bed.
As I lay in bed awake the next
morning with Brain
Freeze playing in my head, I tried to think of
what lines should come next.
A few minutes later, the line For
now I’ll / Just sit here and dream / My whole life
away, came to me.
I actually thought of that concept, maybe even
that exact line, the night before, after thinking of the
“If only” line.
However, I wasn’t sure about it at the time. But that morning, I sang it and liked it, so it stayed.
Another idea I thought of the day before was to
say something about pulling out my hair thinking of her.
I wasn’t sure how to say it though.
But that morning while I was taking a shower and
getting ready for school and the song played in my head,
I thought of: As
I pull out my hair / Dreaming of you / Thinking of me.
I was proud of myself because I thought those
were pretty catchy lines.
Then I went to school.
The next day, Thursday, November
18, 1999, the morning of the show, I sang the song in my
head again and came up with the line The
thought was beautiful / The thought was fun / But now I
realize the dream is gone / A cruel cruel scheme love
pulled on me. I
kind of forgot the tune, so I played it on guitar to
make sure everything fit right and sounded fine.
It did. Then,
just a few minutes from noon, as I sat at the kitchen
table trying to figure out the closing lines to this
song that took me over two years to finish, I had
finished. All
at once, the last lines came to me:
Oh naïve
heart, I let you lead / And now you’re crushed and
suffering / I should have known, I’m so sorry.
And with that, I was finally done.
Mario practiced the lyrics over and
over, but he wasn’t sure if he’d remember the tune,
words, chord changes, etc. good enough to be able to
play the song with confidence at Chain Reaction later
that night. So
to solve our little dilemma, I taped the lyric sheet to
my hi-hat stand so I’d be ready to jump in if Mario
happened to mess up.
A plan like that sounds like no big deal when it
is in the works. But
in reality, it was just a recipe for disaster.
When our moment of truth had finally arrived that
night, Mario ended up losing the tune, and forgetting
the words. I
panicked because I was in the middle of singing my
background vocals, and realized I had to immediately
activate our emergency evacuation plan.
Heroically launching our plan into action, I
intertwined mumbles of random words with moans of
clueless hums, killing time while scowering the flailing
page of lyrics through flailing arms (both blissfully
dancing together to the beat of my drums), in desperate
search for the words of salvation that mischievously hid
behind the dim room of dark colored lights. Unable to find my place, but too ignorant to give up, I
played on, convincing myself that no one had noticed.
But it was no use.
My denial was only a misleading illusion.
Not only was I just as lost as Mario, but I also
ended up throwing everything else off.
And by the time we had given up our loosing
attempts at redemption, the song was pretty much
mutilated, and our first round at publicly playing Brain
Freeze was ended in tragedy.
What you hear on this album is what
we attempted to accomplish live that horrific night. For
those of you who were there to witness the disaster in
person, I’m sure you will agree that this CD version
of Brain
Freeze is a lot tamer than the original recipe
we once served. And
for those of you that were lucky enough not to make it,
just take my word for it—it’s better.
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