Words and Music by Eg

I wrote this song in 2008 or 2009 and then, after playing it for a few people and getting a tepid response, it was promptly forgotten.  As I was beginning to conceptualize the songs I wanted to include on Kleen 2013, I pulled First Time back out.  I remember the first time (ha!) that I played with with Lisa singing.  When she did the octave on the chorus “Weeeeeeeeeeeee, have been broken,”  I knew right there that I wanted this song on the album.  I had always liked this song it because it has a very cool intro riff on the acoustic.  It is the only song I have ever written in the key of Abmin.

The message of the song is not subtle.  It is a straightforward narrative of the progression of addiction—from fun to “making prayers to die.”  I very much like to chorus and the juxtaposition of being broken and restored—that seems to me to be the experience of recovery, whether you are a still-steaming newcomer or crusty old-timer.  We are indeed broken.  We are indeed being restored.  I also like the idea that there remained something good inside of me that, no matter how many heinous things I did to so myself and many other people in active addition, still lived and wanted to be a good person.  Anyone who has survived active addiction and found their way into recovery will, I think, be able to relate to this.  We flung ourselves headlong into the abyss of death and oblivion—yet we could not kill either our bodies or our spirits.  Some little something stayed alive long enough to get us to the rooms and into recovery.  And the recovery process seems to be the nurturance and fanning of this flame until, as one of my sponsors used to frequently say, “My shit is on fire!”

I do love this song and hope you hear me extending my love to you in hopes that you find your way to loving yourself.

I know I have talked in other places about the alchemy that happened at County Q when we tracked these songs.  I played this song for all the musicians on my Taylor acoustic (with my capo on the 4th fret).  I plinked out all those intro notes and then sand the song for them.  They all nodded their heads when I was done and said:  “let’s do it.”  Paul and Dow immediately found that bass and tom thing that was just malevolent.  Then came JT with his perfect interpretation of my intro but in a grown-up form.  JT was followed by Jim playing the darkest harmonica part I have ever heard played.  The harmonica in this song just drips with grease.  It is a truly nasty tone and I love it.  All these parts were developed and gelled within the first two or three minutes of playing the song.  I was dumbfounded that they has captured the spirit of the song so quickly and then grew it up to a fully mature piece in this short span of time.  Ace added the reverse reverb on the snare in postproduction and the whole thing has coalesced to become one of my favorite songs on the album./2