This is the last in a series of blog entries about the songs on the upcoming album “Hello Cruel World”, to be released January 2012.

 

Haven’t done as well as I thought I would

I’m not dead but I’m damaged goods

And it’s getting late

 

As we grow older, the monsters and ghosts that haunted us in childhood trade in their garish clothing for something more mundane, more fitting to middle-age. They take the shape of lost causes, lost opportunities, lost love. They stare back at us from the mirror. They go by names like Futility, Defeat, Failure.

 

You don’t live this long without regrets

Telephone calls you don’t wanna get

Stones you’d rather leave unturned

 

Anyone who’s telling the truth will tell you that there are regrets. Eventually your limitations, your weaknesses and your failures rise up to greet you, and you either make peace with them or they haunt you, or kill you. Keep moving forward. Survival is heroic. It’s the struggle, not the victory.

 

But ooh, the grain of sand becomes the pearl

Yeah, hello cruel world

 

“Hello Cruel World” by Gretchen Peters
©2011 Circus Girl Music, administered by Carnival Music (ASCAP)
from the upcoming album Hello Cruel World

photo by Gretchen Peters (all rights reserved)