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All Bandcamp sales of this single will be donated to the National Victim's Fund (www.victimsfirst.org/nationalfund).

Friendship Bench

© Lyrics by Hugh Webber
© Music by Annika Jayne

Hopscotch marked on flagstone tiles
Sunburnt grass, playground chalk lines
And the ghost of Mary sits forsaken
No one plays catch, her side of heaven

Broken promise, love me-not flowers
Countin’ petals, playin’ for hours
Shot rings out, ricochets like a bell
Police phone call, send me to hell

On the friendship bench
I contemplate my fate
Lines on the ground became the lines on my face
On the friendship bench
Losing track of the years
And the rain mingles down with my tears

Freezing sweat, the dead of night
Hot and angry, wake up petrified
Wrestling my faith, trying to be real
Is it wrong, do need I pain to feel?

On the friendship bench
I contemplate my fate
Lines on the ground became the lines on my face
On the friendship bench
Losing track of the years
And the rain mingles down with my tears

On the friendship bench
I contemplate my fate
Lines on the ground became the lines on my face
On the friendship bench
Losing track of the years
And the rain mingles down with my tears

Now I’m dancing with the devil in a suicide clench
And the two of us sit here holding hands

On the friendship bench
Now I know my fate
Lines on the ground became the lines on my face
On the friendship bench
Losing track of the years
And the rain mingles down with my tears

This is a song about the aftermath of the Columbine shooting in 1999. Hugh Webber wrote the lyrics from the perspective of a person who lost a friend in the shooting. The lyrics capture the struggle of the surviving friend in a way that gives me goosebumps. The emotions in the lyrics are almost palpable. When lyrics touch me that way, I immediately hear a melody and I tried to convey all those emotions from the lyrics in the music.

Thanks to Kelly Kintner for giving me these lyrics, Keri Kintner for singing these beautiful harmonies, and Phil Graham for arranging and mixing the song.

All Bandcamp sales of this single will be donated to the National Victim's Fund (www.victimsfirst.org/nationalfund).

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