All I’ll Ever Be

Now we come to the song that is usually the crowd favorite. I’m not really sure why. Even people who are iffy on the rest of the album like this one.

Track #3 on evolution is “All I’ll Ever Be.” It was recorded June 14, 2005. Unlike many of my other tunes, this one started off with a guitar riff–a series of double stops that outlined a basic chord progression. (The guitar was recorded through a Leslie rotating speaker simulator pedal; this was the week before I finally got my Hammond Organ. You can tell I was reaching for that sound, even back then.) I recorded the guitar riff, then found the bassline that fit the sound–not a complicated chord progression, but highly improvised.

This period in my life was known as “Dark Side Summer.” My wife was in Cambodia, and I was home alone, a middle school teacher on summer break. I thought I’d get a lot of recording done; I was wrong. It didn’t take long for depression to set in.

When I wrote this song, I was looking back at my path through life. I started out in engineering, of all things, decided I hated it, moved on to chemistry, decided it was too dangerous, then wound up in a job I love–teaching.

So I had found a home, but not a highly respected home. I do not know why, but in the US, teaching is a poorly regarded profession. Despite how good I am at what I do, despite the lives I enrich and the kids I inspire, in the Great American Money Grab, I’m a poor contender; and in the US, sometimes it feels your worth as a human being is measured in dollars per year.

And small wonder. The Americas have been the scene of a tragedy rivaling the Holocaust: an entire people wiped out in a combined gold and land grab. Columbus brought slavery to the Americas; DeSoto killed and tortured for gold; dead Indians used to be redeemable for a five dollar bounty. It seems capitalism is the new God, and social Darwinism is the order of the day.

So yes, with all that on my mind, no wonder this song sounds like the Blues.