You,

You always ask, “Who killed the nice guys?”

You did.

Running to them when you’ve lived your life and lost your love.

This is a salute to the men and to the boys who just sat there, never leaving your side and abiding to the underlooked law of what you had to say.

They just sat there, listening.

The Nice Guys just sit there, listening.

Never asking anything in return,

Taking your problems, and spewing out diamonds.

Your words of sadness twisted to make you feel better,

And all you do is cry on their shoulder, saying to your friends, “They’re too nice to date,” or “He’s not my type.”

But their shoulders eventually will dry up from all of your tears, and because you never applied any of your moisturising love. You’ll wonder where they went, and you’ll never realize that, when you were young, and when they were young, you always went for the men who had nice cars, nice hair, didn’t care for you, or were the captain of the football team.

When you grow up,

When you start looking,

You’ll say, “Who killed the nice guys?”

You did.

You with your shallow looks, your shallow money, and your shallow tans. The Nice Guys didn’t care about that. They saw you within, they saw your most vulnerable self.

But now they’re gone.

From you.

I hate to say it, but I think I might miss Highschool... I won't really miss the homework, or the style of classes (I'm much more excited about music school), but I think I'll miss the interaction. After this, everybody leaves. We all go branch off to do bigger and better things, whether that be to travel or to gain higher knowledge of some kind. For instance, a few of my friends are leaving (One plans to live in Amsterdam for a year, another Taiwan), and I realized recently that I will miss them terribly, but due to the modern marvel that is the internet, I can still communicate with both audio and video, so it's almost like they're there.

In University, we meet new people, but after Highschool, there is (or may be, for some people) a void that can never be quite full until you're reunited with your old friends. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we must keep our loved ones (both friends and more) close, for they are the only ones that keeps us sane, and remind us who we are.

Live
Studio

This song is easily the most powerful and moving song I have ever heard. The beat poetry of Shane Koyczan and the amazing voice of Dan Mangan really do it justice (I like this version more than Shane's original Move Pen Move). I first heard it live at a Dan Mangan show (the one in the video) and it brought nearly the entire crowd to tears. The message of the song is pretty easy to find, and it isn't very complicated, word wise, but it is the most powerful song, in my mind, in existence. The guitar and beat are simple, but the words are what gives this song the emotional power it has.

In a nutshell, it's about somebody who has to watch his mother die. They leave eachother early to travel and go on adventures, their lives "an anthem composed of words like "gotta go." ".

What I can't get over, every time that I listen to this song, is the power of it, and how much it means to me. I haven't ever had such a personal experience, but I can empathize with Koyczan, because his power over the English language really describes the pain of loss.

I landed on this island in a semi lucid dream-like state. A house sits in front of me, desolate, and rotten. Only paint, gasoline, and steel buckets await me. They serve no purpose, and nor do I.A deserted sand path, riddled with jutting rocks, and grimy, drab, water pan out behind the house. A cave, hiding in the darkness, off in the distance, and a light brown pond.d I spread my arms, and the cave opens to me. The weather is cold, dark. In the night time, water laps in to the cave, at a high tide. At a low tide, I can almost make it to the abandoned house, the tide is so low. I burn my books, my belongings, my loves, and my labours inside this cave, as ashes are, Forever lost. They burnt, kept me warm, inside my own mind. Thinking, always thinking.

I walked the land, unknown of this lump of earth's latitude and longitude, barren, as it is, endless and dark inside my own clustered, confused head. I have been here before, perhaps many a time, it is not foreign to me. Twenty-One letters, twenty-one lies, and twenty-one confessions of a once forgotten truth. I folded them up, one by one, into little paper boats. I cast them into the sea, endless in its complexity and watched them shatter; watched them sink into the dark sea. My own armada. I have been here, in this eternal twilight before.

I remember the crash, and I sat there, paralyzed, and as you lay motionless. They cut you out of the car. Blood everywhere. The spiral downward, into and endless hole, a pit, perhaps, of bones and disease. The engine lay strewn onto the tarmac, like an ocean of black seeping out from under an oil drum. I was once fearing for your life. Now I know.

It seems like only yesterday that I was running around, umbrella in hand, in the rain. I donned my raincoat, gleamed, and darted outside. The rain was pouring down, and I jumped in excitement. The cold of the rain matched with my warm beating heart. It made me happy. I took my first excited look at the puddle and I jumped. Splash. Joy filled my heart, and rain fanned off as I twirled my cheap $8 Deals World umbrella. Thankfully, it didn't break. I kept jumping up and down into puddles, water soaking my clothes. A waterfall of droplets dropped off my jacket and umbrella. Rocks leaving splashes left and right. As I get colder I'm forced to go inside my house, don my blanket, and sit by the fire.

The rain continues outside for several hours, taunting me. My dogs curled up to me, sleeping in the warm heat of the fire. As I dry off, I reflect on my day, thinking about how amazing it was to dance in the rain, just like a child.