Like Today
Liner notes
According to the timestamp on the ancient university website snapshotted by the Internet Archive, the lyrics to this were last edited on September 12th, 2001. A proper rapid response song. The original tune is lost to history (and was likely not very interesting), so I wrote a new one. 'Tracey' refers to a girl in my class at sixth form who died in a car accident. I didn't know her well, but friends of mine did.Like today, I was on a train
The day I heard about Dunblane
Like today, I hoped it was a hoax,
But no-one ever makes those kind of jokes
Like today, I just went numb
At the monsters some people can become
Like today, I became incensed
Wanted somebody to make it make some sense
Like today, I stayed up 'til three
And it still never made any sense to me.
Like today, I nearly prayed
The first day they bombed Belgrade
Like today, I watched in disbelief
As civilians in their buildings came to grief
Like today, I'd little liking for
The targets of the act of war
But like today, it seemed to be the plan
To kill innocent people to hurt a guilty man
Like today I stayed up 'til three
And it still never made any sense to me
Like today, I sat down and cried
The day I heard that Tracey had died
Like today, everybody knew
There'd been nothing we could do
But like today, everybody felt
Some kind of nausea, some kind of guilt
And like today, I wrote a song
To convince myself it was ok to carry on
Like today I was awake 'til three
Hoping sleep might come to me eventually.