John Mark McMillan | 4 years ago
Acoustic version of "The Medicine" live from my basement studio.
I sang this song for the fist time on the streets of San Francisco to young runaways. They congregated in the city, in those days, looking for solace and safety. (That was before the tech giants had fully gentrified them away). In 2006 we spent a few days singing to them and were fairly well received outside of an instance with a small group of large humans dressed as nuns. They called themselves “The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” and didn’t like us because they’d heard we were of the faith. Rumors were that they could be violent, and we obviously didn’t want trouble.
We avoided them pretty well that week, but what we couldn’t escape were the enduring faces of so many wandering bodies. At 26, every bone in me pinged and buzzed with the rising conflict of a budding and complexed empathy. I wanted to offer these beautiful complicated friends some solace, but the truth was I was kind of running too. How could I “fix” people when I needed so much “fixing” myself?
Those who know “The Medicine” album well, will tell you the underlying theme of the record is “resurrection”. They wouldn’t be wrong, but looking back I can clearly see how “resurrection” was also a metaphor for an eternal 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥 of place. Like my friends on Castro I was also trying to find my way home.
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Lyrics:
Driving by those trucker stops
The cheap motels made of concrete rocks
With a hole inside your chest
The size of a city block
And I remember the day
When you said you weren't afraid to die
I don't think your brave for it
I just think your more afraid of being alive
If I had the medicine
I'd give you the medicine
Cause I miss you son
I'd bring you back home if I was the one
But it's four and ten
In the belly of the four AM
And your staring down the weekend
To silence the pain
And I'm wide awake
And there's blood on the promenade
Here's to waking up with that stone between your ribs
And you're lying down again
You just pretend you don't know what it is
When everyone around you says that you're not the one to blame for it
But you're the only one feeling the pain for it
So you're gonna take matters into your own hands
If I had the medicine
I'd give you the medicine
Cause I miss you son
I'd bring you back home if I was the one
But it's four and ten
In the belly of the four AM
And your staring down the weekend
To silence the pain
And I'm wide awake
And there's blood on the promenade
