I wrote January in July of 2019.
The original lyric hook I wrote around was:
Painter’s jeans are like ashes in the river are like
Clouds that gather but never rain
This song is a display of the feeling: I have so much to say and no one to hear it. This is primarily an allusion to recognizing my potential while stifling myself out of doubt (self-sabotage). It also is an ode to finding myself in relationships with people who give no room for how I see and feel things by taking no responsibility for their lane of the two-way street.
It carries on a subtle Humpty Dumpty theme: “All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put me back together again.”
The first half of January is the energy of life cut short. It is the energy of no outlet, no voice, and after years of paying dues and pain, no culmination into a meaningful form. The last verse; however, changes the whole moral of the song because without it, it would just be kicking and screaming. The narrator decides, as they lie in eggshells on a cobblestone path, to take a needle and begin stitching themself back together. And that is the long and winding road that saves a person from suicide… of any kind.
Listen to January.
Read the lyrics.