The Best Place I Ever Lived

(single and video, 2020)

Video-
Director & Editor - Corbin Murdoch
Camera & Production - Sam Tudor
Additional Camera- Corbin Murdoch & Hannah Turner

Music-
Produced by Corbin Murdoch & Jesse Gander
Guitar & Voice - Corbin Murdoch
Dobro - Tim Tweedale
Drums - Barry Mirochnick
Bass & Synth - Jesse Gander
Engineered & Mixed by Jesse Gander at Raincity Recorders
Mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music

//

I was born into this city
Watched it grow up next to me
Barely 30 years
Into its second century
Now construction cranes are clawing back
Another square inch of sky
Can’t remember when my city
Stopped looking me in the eye

Let’s have one last round of drinks
Before they start tearing the building down
Cocktails are infused With the last traces of Chinatown
Stumble home down side streets
That they tell the tourists to avoid
Streetlights in the puddles
Cut with traces of an opioid

People talk of leaving
Sometimes even I do
All I ever wanted
Was somewhere to belong to

Standing at the bus stop
Hoping for a Number 8
Standing on the sidelines
Hoping markets will self-regulate
Stand before the audience
Take care to acknowledge land
But not that its continued occupation’s
Part of our retirement plan

People talk of leaving
I wonder if we ought to
All I ever wanted
Was somewhere to belong to

It’s too late for the island
Too late for the valley
Studio or bachelor
Two-bedroom, single-family

Wealth as its own virtue
Land as its expression
A generation saves up
Towards its own dispossession

Cindy says she’s leaving
But where she’ll go she isn’t sure
They parcelled up a city block
And sold it out from under her
She says, “I stuck it out and gave this city
Everything I had to give
I’ll remember this apartment
As the best place that I ever lived”