It's a true story. I didn't want to release this one cause it hit a little close to home, at least for a while. Time might not heal all wounds but if you are aware it can give you a little perspective.
My ex-wife and I were together for four years, then we split up and she moved in with the man who I had considered to be my closest friend. He was also a former bandmate and is a phenomenal guitarist. I guess it was my fault. He had been going through a rough time and I invited him into our home to live with us. Thinking that we could get the band back together and make some music, but he had too many problems going on in his life at that time to focus on music and it never happened. What did happen is he spent a lot of time in the house talking with my girlfriend and I guess they found some common ground. Well he moved out, back to his dads place and our life continued on for a couple more years and I never thought any more of him. But she did.
So she left me to go live with him and his sister in their father's house in the middle of nowhere and I sold my house and all my belongings to move to Mexico. Well things didn't go well for her there and she decided she wanted to come back to me and as I still loved her and didn't really hold anything against her of course I said sure. This happened a few times though, back and forth. On the third time of returning to me I was living in a cheap hotel waiting for paperwork to come through so I could leave the country and she was finally ready to commit fully to staying with me and heading to Mexico. We sold the van that we had bought together and she had taken when she left and got rid of a bunch of stuff that wouldn't fit in the Land Cruiser. Then we got married, made it official in the eyes of the law, and set out for a honeymoon. The paperwork I was waiting for had still not cleared and so we were going to spend a month or so in the states, somewhere in the south where it was warmer while we waited. The main reason for getting married was for a temporary resident visa for mexico and the waiting was for the appointment with the consulate, they were booked out three months in advance.
Well as the song says were three days in and she decided that she wanted to go back to her other man. I could see the situation building by day two and after being socked in by a storm somewhere in Oregon things came to a head and she said she wanted to go back. What could I do but give in. We camped for a couple more days waiting out the storm and then hauled ass for 20 hours straight to get back to Canada. I drove to her moms house and left her and her bags at the bottom of the driveway. And that's the last time I saw her.
We patched things up after that. I was in Utah in Moab and had just driven to the top of the world, mainly for the photo and written a song about being on the top of the world and still feeling down. What's life's achievements without someone to share them with? She had summer vacation plans with her son and was planning on joining me in Mexico after that. So we spent the next month talking via email and facetime. It was during this time while I was living on the beach in the middle of nowhere Mexico that I wrote this track. I thought it would be great if she sang harmony and background vocals on it. Of course I sent it to her and she changed the chord arrangement around to a three chord repetition and sent back her version. We were excited to play it together, a song about our failed marriage of three days even though we were still technically married at the time. In canada you have to stayed married for a year before you can file for divorce. She bought a ticket to Tijuana and bus tickets from TJ to San Felipe and it was all planned. We talked the night before she was set to leave her moms on a bus to Vancouver to the airport and then I woke up to her email saying she had changed her mind.
Truth be told I had given it ten to one odds on her making it down or not making it whatever way you put it, so I wasn't too surprised. It still hurt though, I still missed her and wanted to see her. I know a woman cheats on you with your best friend and your supposed to say fuck ‘em both and never look back, but I wasn’t that concerned. He was no threat to me and everyone has moments of weakness. She was mine at the time.
All works out as it's supposed to in the end. I met the woman who is now my wife that very morning I received the news. I was a little bit distraught that day of course but came back the next day and cooked dinner for her and her friend that she had come out to see. We hit it off and after she returned to Tijuana we started chatting on messenger until we arranged to see each other again. And the rest is history as they say.
So you see how this song might seem a little personal, something that I didn't want to put out into the world to be judged by strangers, but it's a good song, for a sad break up song, but those are my specialty if I do say so myself. I do feel though that when it comes to song writing I'm just the messenger they choose to come through. It's not me writing the song it's just me writing it down. Songs write themselves, especially the good ones. They're meant to be given to the audience to use as they will to heal their own souls the same way the artist is able to heal a little piece of themselves when they channel it. I like to think of songs I have written as a road map to a better way of being, cause that's what they have given me.