Mirror in the Rain
This song took thirty-nine years to write. Most of that time, it had the wrong name.
In 1987 it was called "Bones is the Ruler of the World" — a total cliché 80s rock song that missed the mark, hard. I chased that thing with everything my young creative heart had, and I could never, never finish it. It became the lost track. And for decades, it sat in my head as evidence — proof of a fool, playing a part he wasn't, following steps that others led.
But here's what the wince doesn't tell you — the part it took me decades to say plainly. The song didn't die because it was a cliché. It died because of what people said about it. The insults about my songs, my art, the things I was building — they landed harder than anyone knew, and I didn't know how to deal with it. Nobody teaches a young artist how to carry that. So I carried it the only way I knew: I turned it inward and made it mine. Their words became my verdict.
And the cost was bigger than one song. It was self-denial — creation after creation started and never finished, because somewhere in me the sentence had already been handed down: don't bother, remember what they said. And a creative fire with nowhere to go doesn't just go out. It sends you down wrong roads. I got lost. I did stupid things. Paths and directions in life that could have been avoided entirely — if I'd known back then that an insult is a comment on a moment, not a verdict on a soul.
Then came the second act of the same mistake — later, in the 1990s. Because when I picked the fire back up, I didn't pick up my fire. I thought I was Scorsese. I thought I was Tarantino.
I thought I was Scorsese / With a scene inside my head / Moving people in the camera / Following steps that others led
Big ideas, big scenes, big creations — pushing the limits of what the 1990s could hold. And all of it foolish, not because ambition is foolish, but because none of it was mine. I had lost total touch with my roots — the original ideas, the original creations, the things that came from Webb Drive and creek stone and my own two hands. I was building in borrowed styles with borrowed eyes, playing the part of some fool I thought was wise. Fire dressed up as art.
My stupid creative heart / Went chasing some design / Never saw the fool I was / Till years had crossed the line
That's the full shape of what this song reckons with: first the insults that shut the original work down, then the borrowed dreams that filled the silence. Two different decades. Same lost thread.
Everybody carries a mirror they didn't ask for. Not the one on the wall — the one in your head. The one that replays the things you've done, the things you've said, the pride that was hard to swallow. Mine had an unfinished song etched into the glass and a decade of borrowed visions behind it, and I kept score against all of it long after everyone else stopped counting.
I could live inside regret / But regret won't build tomorrow
That's the opening bargain of the song, and it's one I had to actually make. Because I could sit and count. I did sit and count, for years. The unfinished songs. The wrong turns. Things I can't reach back and change. But there's a question underneath all that counting that took me a long time to ask out loud:
But is it worth tying up the now / For something buried long ago / When maybe no one blames me / But the face I used to know
Maybe no one blames me but the face I used to know. Read that twice. The people who threw the insults forgot them within the week. The prosecution rested decades ago. I was the only one still holding court — serving a sentence written by voices that never mattered as much as I let them.
And I carried that verdict across an entire country. This song walks the whole map of my life, the same four grounds that run through everything I write:
From California's golden glare / To Pennsylvania winters / To Florida's blinding sun / To Oregon rain that follows / Every loving thing I've done
Every place kept a mirror in the rain. Every place asked the same question — did I get it wrong, or was I just being vain?
The bridge slows to half-time and gives each state its verdict. California sold me on the dream, brighter than it ever seemed. Pennsylvania held the cold hard truth in creek stone gray and rusted roofs. Florida burned with younger pride. And Oregon — Oregon taught me what shame can't hide. Then the bridge lands on the hardest line I've written about myself:
I've been the judge / The jury and the knife / And the only heart I tore / In the end was mine
That's the whole case. Nobody else was bleeding. The insults started the trial, but I'm the one who kept it running — judge, jury, and knife — for an unfinished song, a decade of borrowed dreams, and every wrong road between them.
So what do you do with a mirror like that? You don't smash it. You don't argue with it. The chorus knows the answer, and it's gentler than either:
Mirror in the rain / Leave it in the rain / Let the old ghost soften / Till there's nothing to explain
Leave it in the rain. Let Oregon's weather — the rain that follows every loving thing I've done — do what rain does. Soften it. Wash the glare off it. Not by turning backward. By living plain.
And here's the part 1987 could never have seen coming: the song I couldn't finish became the song that finished me writing this album. "Mirror in the Rain" was born from "Bones" — and Floregon was born from "Mirror in the Rain." The lost track didn't stay lost. The unfinished things didn't stay unfinished. And the roots I lost touch with for a whole borrowed decade — they're what this entire record is made of. They just needed thirty-nine years, four states, and an honest rain.
If you're a young creator reading this with somebody's insult still ringing in your ears: it's a comment on a moment. It is not a verdict on you. Don't hand them the gavel. And when you pick the fire back up — make sure it's yours.
The judge. The jury. The knife. The score I kept long past the blame. Golden glare. Cold truth. Younger pride. Honest rain.
I judged myself too hard, before I saw it plain.
Leave it in the rain.
— 01DW3ST
