From the recording Counting My Rings: B-sides (2014)
In 2006, a friend of mine then attending Middle TN State University had a class project in which he had to produce and mix two original songs by someone/anyone. He asked whether I had any new songs, and if I’d like to record them. I had just written “Bedlam,” so I volunteered it, along with another new song at the time, “Traveling Onion." Written during the so-called war on terror, Bedlam is my response to what I perceived to be the futility of fighting a no-win situation. It was not at all my intention for it to be a “statement” song, but merely my own response to the chaos (bedlam) of a world seemingly always on the verge of self-destruction (fuse), and lacking in common sense.
Lyrics
Here’s the story, it’s all or none
I am far from being done
I’m an oath, and a liar too
The living host of a triple-proof
I can see myself in you
But I’m so afraid to move
At times like these we all could use
A little peace in place of all the doom
If you’re like me, you still never know
If you’re a ghost or just another shadow
Oh, to hold the world in view
And to live like love was new
In the bedlam and the fuse
I would reel and start to fade
If I could write the world away
In the chaos there is calm
It stretches forth and it greets us all
We can see ourselves in you
But we’re still afraid to move
At times like these we all could use
A little peace in place of all the doom
If you’re like me, you still never know
If you’re a ghost or just another shadow
Oh, to hold the world in view
And to live like love was new
In the bedlam and the fuse
Somehow I never knew
When everything was new
You were worth holding onto