EPISODE FOUR: SWEET 16/EYES WITHOUT A FACE

‘EYES WITHOUT A FACE’: Yes Perri Lister and i went thru many ups and downs in our relationship in the 80′s and this was my garbled lyric explaining how i felt about these lapses in love. Me going on tours and being unfaithful i think meant i was turning the song back on myself in a way and i was the staring ‘eyes’ pole-axed by my own disaffection and lapses in true caring for her or being aware of how i was destroying the the thing i loved. But again the looseness of the lyric means there are many personal interperatations to be garnered from the lyric.

‘SWEET 16′ was about when she left me in ’87 after having enough of my rock n roll lifestyle and my seeming lack of real concern for her feelings at times but i felt i was working hard and didn’t mean to hurt her but did by constantly exploring the wild side of life and crushing the pure feelings she had for me . Our love was symbolized by the love Ed, the Coral Castle originator, felt but had now lost, almost inexplicable to him, the innocent love he had lost and the bereft feelings he had. I was very lonely after she left me but filled the gap with sexual and drug escapades and numbed myself to her leaving. I had my music and was sacrificing all to the goal of being a rockstar but losing the love i craved along the barbed way. I built the song as a memorial just as he built the Coral Castle.

Yes unfortunately i was finding out the hard way about faithfulness and being true and also when you lose someone by being unfaithful the harm it can do to your own soul! But even with Sweet 16 there can be many interpretations for the individual which is one of my goals in writing a song sometimes they can’t be always be for just me the larger imortance is that we all lose and win in love and life and loss of innocence is shattering however it happens but it is a part of human developement in our lives a natural thing in our lives evolution.