I’m Not Gonna Try To Change Anyone But Myself

This song is the realization of several visions I’ve been trying to bring together: It’s a mantra. It’s reggae, it’s dub. It’s got a killer horn section. And it achieves a sort of introspective spirituality I’ve begun chasing a lot lately.

It’s the second song I’ve posted with horns arranged by local legend Mark “Speedy” Gonzales, and by far the most far out song from this session as you’ll hear in the second half when the horns take turns playing through a delay pedal that I was operating. This song shares  the same long, repetitive structure as Lub Dub. I didn’t realize until we were recording it that it is a sort of continuation of that instrumental, this time with meditative lyrics.

I’m not gonna to try to change anyone but myself
I’m not gonna to try to change you, I’m through
I’m not gonna to try to change anyone but myself
I’m gonna try, I’m gonna choose my truths

believed em when they told me i could do, anything i choose, i put my mind to
now it sounds cruel and funny as i’m runin out of time and money
so much less in within our control than I knew in my youth, but now i know the truth
we don’t choose what we believe for a long long time, but when we do it’s divine
I’m not gonna to try to change anyone but myself…

we’re all in way over our heads, taking our meds until we’re dead
thought that there was something i could say but it doesn’t work that way, so i’ll save the cliches
i could waste my time trying to change your mind, by why? it’s written in the sky
no one wants to hear what you think they should do, we just want someone who’s true

I’m not gonna to try to change anyone but myself…

so, i go out and i sit in the sun, close my eyes, turn my hands up the sky
i sit real still for a while, breath real slow, forget everything i know
i see the world as it will be, without me and my misery
unconsciousness connects me to everything else and for a second i get let go of myself

I’m not gonna to try to change anyone but myself…


Jason Molin – vocals and guitar
Gray Parsons – drums
Doug Snyder – bass
Mark Gonzalez – trombone
Dan Bechdolt – sax
Kevin Flatt – trumpet

IMAG2349 horns2