I went to a grad affair again
Hoping to see her face.
A glimpse of her blue eyes can warm my heart.
Deep inside, alive, a pain.
A struggle to hold my pace.
The signals she gives are tearing me apart.

Chorus
So turn me off or turn me on.
I can’t take the stress each day.
I’d like to get close to you
When the day is through,
But I’ll never know what to say.
And before I turn around, you’ll be gone.
Before I turn around, you’ll be gone.

I once felt in love, in touch, inspired.
At home in the human race.
The touch she gave, she thought no more about.
It awoke in me a feeling long retired:
The uncontrollable urge to embrace,
But I’d hate to push myself on her while in doubt.

Chorus

This song was written in Morgantown, WV in 1987 mere weeks before I met the wonderful woman who later became my wife and was nearly killed in a car accident…it was a summer of extremes.

It should be noted that I have written very few songs about my wife. The reason is that she’s never broken my heart.

This tune is about a fellow graduate student that I had a crush on (and, I believe she had feelings for me too). Therein lies the premise for the song. I wanted very much to pursue a relationship with her, but couldn’t tell whether I was reading her right. As I pondered this a few weeks, she transferred to another university. DAMN!

That’s about all there is to the story except the details in the lyric about the party I went to primarily because I knew she’d be there.

I played all the instruments (guitars, bass, keyboards, drum machine), and sang the three vocal parts.

Originally recorded in St. Albans, VT in 8-track digital and mixed to stereo on a Roland VS-840EX in the spring of 2000. The final recording was mastered using Cool96.