Back When it Mattered Songtext
von Anton Donovan

You put the word out, like a rumor in a half-lit kitchen
Half-heard by someone I′d never met
Who swore you were smarter than me
I wanted a drink, you wanted a reason
So I showed up in something ridiculous and stained
(and not the good kind of stain)
Three or four, or nine dates, but who's actually counting
I got stubborn, tried out-shooting you
Before you could pull the trigger
The black dog′s great for strange and painful endings And it wants you all to itself
Suddenly, we're sending postcards
About Steak and Ale and fuckups
Autumn, the Globe, wine-stained smile
Winking through the tubes and chemtrails
You pledged allegiance to disaster
In the suburbs, no less
This bastard, as a professional, I can't stand vigilantes
But I love how good I was at being
The out-of-town accessory to your escape

Distance isn′t romantic
It′s just air between this and that habit
You crossed three thousand miles just to taste it
I crossed an invisible line
Eighty-sixed your union
Then drank myself five-sixths dead
Call it even


My most inexplicable, consequential error
Was losing you the first time
We're funny, aren′t we?
Love letters, half confessions, half threats
Every city we've burned down feeds the fire between us
I miss your voice like I miss myself
Back when it mattered

You joined again, handpicked tranquility, steady hands
I built a nation on clinking trashbags
Married a hallucination, woke up in a new shade of hell
Hookups and fuckups
Never could quite get her mouth around accountability
I starred in my own horrorshow
In a suitcase, ghosted toasted ghost
Texted you: "I think I broke the part of me that likes parties"
Your reply? "You were hotter broken, anyway"

Premonitions, midnight postcards
Everything dripping with frustrated lust
Now I′m not sure what I saw, or what I see anymore
Surviving by accident, loving on purpose—well, mostly
The jacket gave you permission
Like a hall pass to somewhere you pointed to on a globe
We loved in increments of weekends and shared phenomena
Four times a year, lucky, unlucky, just enough to fire the fire

I should've shouted, "Stay"
But you had already left (but I wasn′t notified)
Your voice turned into oxygen and then nothing
You laughed, you bit your lip, hung up, called back, hung up again
Bittersweet is a joke meant for someone with softer teeth

My most inexplicable, consequential error
Was losing you the first time
We're funny, aren't we?
Love letters, half confessions, half threats
Every city we′ve burned down, feeds the fire between us
I miss your voice like I miss myself back when it mattered

"Never gonna see you again, am I?"

Your silence, artistic, deliberate, cruel, cool
I′d call you in my sleep but I can't find the number
You always said everything was temporary
But I′m stuck here, temporarily damned, dancing with shadows
Just waiting for the next catastrophe, or you, to come around

Back when it mattered
(back when it mattered)
Back when it mattered
(back when it mattered)