When you write lyrics, you venture towards tackling things that are bothersome and combat those things that afflict your sense of peace with songs to sustain tranquility for yourself. It becomes an antidote that you believe in personally, yet a vague, undefined trail of words appears to other people, and you hope they can relate to those words in their own ways individually and uniquely.
The lyrics to Something Else were initially directed towards Adolph Hitler and how one person’s selfishness can destroy the potential of so many people. Yes, this is an unorthodox concept to wrestle with; however, these are lyrics that I penned in high school while being easily impressionable and disconcerted.
If you destroy someone’s potential, you adversely impact those around them in which that potential could have reached as well. I can’t help but think with each genocide or even small-circled act of selfishness we can commit, “What books could they have written? What inventions could they have made? What songs could they have written? What diseases could they have cured?”
It’s pretty easy to point a finger at one of the evilest human beings that has ever lived, Hitler. Right? Now that I am older, however, I can point the finger at myself and determine if I am truly helping anyone that is reaching out, or if I am doing anything to maximize the potential of the people around me.
Final thoughts…
On a side note, the chorus drives home a Karma-like conclusion. Personally, I want people to know that this is NOT an integral ingredient to my life or spiritual philosophy. “What comes around goes around” is too true to ditch. Even though it was a major part of my thought process at the age in which I wrote the chorus, from that point until now, I have seen too many good things happen to bad people and too many bad things happen to good people to contest that the chorus’ lyrics should be the staple in the jam. I think the hope that Joshua and I have is that the song would encourage people to actually do more for those people that truly need help. That’s what really matters right now.
