Trial and Error

this video always just makes me annoyed and depressed, because I was never able to record the song properly. I wrote it when I was incredibly upset (and the video is from then, probably like the third time I'd played it straight through, like a half hour after it had started coming into being) and it was on this weird out-of-tune guitar which means I can never really do it properly because it ends up in slightly the wrong key. I mean, it was straining the hell out of me but it still (mostly) sounds clear but you can also hear it hurts, which is this creepy awful balance I have constantly tried to get because I've been obsessively trying to record it, all the time, for the past ten months. It never works. The closest I got was actually a really slow rearranged fingerpicked version with bar chords--which was almost okay just because it was super different and I managed to keep the "oh please just let it sound okay" out of my voice. It's basically doomed though. But I tried again today.

Anyway, there was a post at FWD that said "what are three words you would use to describe your disability?" and I wasn't sure, but having been messing around with "Trial and Error," I guess that's the answer.

I have a tendency to call people "trial," as a pet name, and also as a criticism behind their backs. I think I must have started around the time I wrote this song, which is where the line came out because the song was kind of an apology: "I know I'm a trial," and then it turned into, "I know I'm a trial...and error."

Some things: it is really hard to feel like you just exist to test people's patience. Like Saint Juniper. I used to try to write songs about him and want to be like him, but it's just really hard to feel like that's all you're ever going to get to be, the jester of the Lord, the person who's so oblivious that normal people end up being moved by it. Being that dependent. It just kills me. When I call people a "trial" it's usually a joke, to their face. When it's not, it's because I think the person is really insensitive and mean, even if it's not on purpose, so I think of them as a trial I have to go through. I hate the fact that with all the effort I put in, I might still be a trial. I wrote this song when I did something incredibly invasive and horrible to someone, in an attempt to be caring. And realized how much I can really invade people and not treat them with respect because I'm trying really hard to do the things that I think are normal, and not be too self-interested, etc.

"Trial and error" is like the worst phrase in the English language. It's easy for you to say if you usually get it right. But on this occasion I was just like, FUCK! It's not over yet? I'm not done yet?

(I change the lyrics and move sections around a lot)

Your heavy heart
Can I come inside

I know I'm a trial an/d error
Can't see how it could get much harder
My neurotheology fucks me sideways

So can I come inside

My father says I changed and went away
Am I getting stronger, am I moving forward
Oh moving forward, you hurt more/It seems to hurt anyway

So, can I go inside
[your heavy heart is]
My heavy heart
[will you take me in/I can go inside]

I know I'm a trial and error
Can't see how it could get much harder
My father says I changed and went away
Am I getting better, faster, stronger every day