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Wastin’ Away

from Kat Trax by The Stray Katz

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“Wastin’ Away” is a simple, mournful song about a fractured child-parent relationship. It’s about a son (any son)—a poor, aspiring singer who gets an important, potentially life-changing audition. (“Meet me here, son, today. Let me hear you sing.”) He tells his mother, “So mama, don’t you cry for me. I’ll be on the morning train. I’m gonna hit the big time and get in out of the rain.” Yet it’s a simple aspiration that tears him apart because his mother is one who once had similar dreams but never pursued them, and is thus wasting away, not even willing to speak to her son’s audition for how it mirrors what she may have passed up in her life. The son begs, “So why don’t you answer me, please. I’m on my beggin’ knees,” but the begging has no effect. Later, after the son has departed to a successful audition and a new life abroad, he asks his mother to come and see him. (“Are you gonna meet me one day…”) He wonders whether his newfound sense of life and hope can perhaps be his gift to her, but she is unwilling to see beyond what she believes to be an unfulfilling life set in stone. “Are you gonna tell me something,” asks the son, “what I really don’t know?” He asks the question of his mother’s old, familiar, fatalistic thinking, and believes such thinking is “Wasting your life away,” but in the end, he understands that he cannot make choices for her and must live his own life.

If the second verse (“Are you gonna…”) appears to stand sketchily to the clear imagery of the first verse, it has to do with intention. The second verse was created more to express weariness—the kind of weariness of loose thinking that one would undoubtedly experience when emotionally torn.

lyrics

Wastin’ away on what you’ll never be
Wastin’ away on what you’ll never be
So mama don’t you cry for me
I’ll be on the morning train
I’m gonna hit the big time
And get in out of the rain
So why don’t you answer me, please
I’m on my beggin’ knees

Meet me here, son, today
Let me hear you sing

Are you gonna meet me one way
That I’m on the run
Are you gonna meet me one day
That I’m really run
Are you gonna tell me one day
That I really don’t know
Are you gonna meet me one day
No, no, no

credits

from Kat Trax, track released January 26, 2011
Lyrics: Lance Bland and Xristopher Bland
Music: Lance Bland

Xristopher Bland: drums, vocals
Lance Bland: rhythm guitar
Rick Wood: rhythm, lead guitars
Gord Bell: bass

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Xrisville Guelph, Ontario

The musical archive of writer-composer-visual artist Xristopher Bland.

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