Watch The Blood Run

This song deals with the troubles I had as a teenager living in a small town.
With the frustration of not feeling "at home," and with no clue on how to obtain a sense of belonging, I would often cut myself.  My left arm, shoulder, and hand are covered in the scars left behind.  I started getting tattoos, and these helped to keep me from cutting as I didn't want to ruin the inked designs that took their place.  Surprising, but it worked.
Cutting was a way to release the frustration and pressure - perhaps it was the adrenaline rush that came with the pain, maybe it was self-punishment for not being able to fit into society like we're "supposed to."  Or maybe it was just the increased stimulation that was intellectually lacking in such a lonely place?  Who knows...

Almost 20 years later, I was sitting in my studio strumming the acoustic guitar part for what would become "Watch The Blood Run."  The first lyric came from nowhere:  "Every time I think of you I find myself just sitting in the dark."  That line brought back memories of a time when I was caught cutting, when my girlfriend walked in on me.  Sitting alone in my darkened bedroom, she initially thought she'd walked in on something else...  haha, nope.  I was digging a sewing needle into my arm and excavating a deep groove.  The rest of the lyrics came quickly, and I was finally able to express what was going on in my head while I cut.
The rest of the song came very quickly, surprisingly including the harmonica melody.  I think it was the first thing I wrote on that instrument, and I can still only play my own songs on it.  I've never learned to actually perform anything but this and "Your Heart And Mine" on a harmonica.

When I mixed the song, I realized the guitar-and-drum-based song needed more.  I asked John (the mixing engineer) to add some keyboards to it.  He created a fantastic, 70s-inspired organ piece.  In turn, that lead to my writing another guitar part in the 5 minutes that John laid down the keys.  Then I asked him to play the new piece on an electric piano.  The song now had a very different feel to what I had originally intended.  Now it needed a tambourine loudly bashing through the song!  Scope Creep ensued...  Finally we had finished it and listened to the mix.  It was done.  Or so we thought.  About to it save, I interrupted with "um, I might have an idea.  I'm not really liking the start.  What if we copy the heavy guitar and drums, and paste them as a 4-bar lead-in to the song?"  We tried it, copy/pasted the bass guitar as well, and ended up with the huge introduction that you now hear.  God I love the rearrangment capabilities of computer-based recording.

And that was how Watch The Blood Run came to be.  And personally it means a lot to have finally been able to express what I was dealing with so long ago.