Turns out a good friend of mine can write and record perfect pop gems. “Judy’s In My Head” is as good as it gets when it comes to working your way out of the weeds of a one-sided relationship. When one person calls the shots and shoots down the rest, the other person dies. We’ve all been there. It’s not a matter of being strong. You can be Atlas, carrying more than you can answer for, and you can build up quite a physique that way. You get pretty damn strong. But in the end, why should you lift that load? Being sweet and pure and creative and true — that is light stuff. I decided recently to let the world drop, and to be myself. A relationship ended in the process. I have to admit that the echoes are still there. Judy is still in my head, “telling me what to do.” But I no longer “play Prince Charles to her Queen Elizabeth.” I am much lighter now.

Dave Crozier: Judy’s In My Head
Dave Crozier: Her Heart’s Inside A Circle

Energy is a priceless commodity. We burn it away on lost causes and second-rate concerns, and then we wonder why we’re left staring at a blank page. Tonight I tried (and failed, for the moment anyway) to create something positive, something lyrical. But I’m still building up flex in my muscles. I’ve held the world on my shoulders, and I built up bulk, but I don’t have the speed. In Crozier’s “The Last 20 Saturday Nights,” the singer is not a man who’s light on his feet. He’s a man who doesn’t believe in regrets, yet is left looking at the past. Dave Crozier is one of the fiercest men I know. Not in the usual gnarly teeth manner, mind you. He’s just utterly convinced of the need to forge into the fiery here and now, and he doesn’t buy into the culture of vicitimization. Good for him. We are all responsible for ourselves, and for making something slightly less flimsy out of the straw huts we live in. It’s that pursuit that we need to focus our energy on. Sometimes it means pausing, going slow for a moment, “staring at the stairs on [the] way up to the second floor.” No need to beat ourselves up when we get side-tracked by external dead-ends and “unholy marriages of ABBA and Sting” in our desperate searches for inspiration. After all, as Dave reminds us, “I’m not the only one who walked away when everything went wrong.” Just keep going, Mr. Crozier.

Dave Crozier: The Last 20 Saturday Nights
Dave Crozier: Staring At The Stairs