This started out as a Brill Building-style collaboration with Ali, a British writer who was in Los Angeles some time ago while I was there. We got together one afternoon in a room with a piano, and I played him some chords I had been batting around, and sang a chorus: "Don't say it'll be better this way." After a few hours together in the company of this bitter little snippet, we parted ways and went home with some vague ideas about completing it. It stuck with me, and I fully intended to take the song a tiny step further and send it back to Ali, now back home in England, for his input.

Unfortunately, I got completely wrapped up in this warm, cozy, venomous feeling the song gave me, and finished it in a fever. I called up Lance and Mike Urbano--who was now on hiatus from a tour with John Hiatt and handy in San Francisco--and we spent a Sunday knocking it out at Will Littlejohn's house in downtown Sacramento. I then proceeded to contract a cold. With a song begging to be finished, it seemed picky and unartistic to let mere poor health stand in the way, so I sang it with a stopped-up head, most of it in one take--the resulting sound reminds me of Tom Petty on a particularly bad day. Sheepishly, I sent it as a fait accompli to Ali: "It ran away with me, pardner. Hope you like it, because there it is!

Are you talking to me?
Goodbye's not that easy
You can't walk away
And expect to make it better with a lame cliche
For all these years
This last kiss should taste like tears
If you want to go out in a blaze of glory
	Don't say you want to be my friend
	Don't say you want to be my friend
	Say something 'bout shame and sin
	Don't say you want to be my friend
You're under the big bright light
It's pumpkin time at midnight
You ain't gonna leave the party
Not until you tell me where you hid the body
Go ahead and get rough
Goodbye's not bad enough
You can do better right off the cuff
	Don't say it's just one of those things
	Don't say it's just one of those things
	I want to hear a heart breaking
	Don't say it's just one of those things
		What makes you think you had to spare me, baby?
		What makes you think I had to take it with wine?
		Don't beat around the bush and tell me "Maybe
		Maybe we'll get back together sometime"
I heard love is blind
But not deaf and dumb and so unkind
It wouldn't hurt so very much
But you're sitting here pretending like we never touched
You're so concealed
Nothing is revealed
It's like you learned your patter from Mata Hari
	Don't say it'll be better this way
	Don't say it'll be better this way
	This is once-in-a-lifetime pain
	Don't say it'll be better this way
	Don't say you want to be my friend
	Don't say you want to be my friend
	Say something 'bout shame and sing
	Don't say you want to be my friend

Lance Taber -- guitars
Michael Urbano -- drums
Larry Tagg -- lead and harmony vocals, bass, and keyboards
Recorded at Will's house by Will Littlejohn
Mixed by Will Littlejohn