Melissa Trinchere

"This record stretches a bit beyond love and desperation (my usual song subjects), it goes somewhere deeper inside of me. It's really about the general depression I've experienced in my life. The title itself is astrological. My sun sign is Cancer and in a lot of ways I relate to that. I especially lived my adolescence as a Cancer, hyper-sensitive, emotional and seeing life in a very dramatic way. The planetary ruler of Cancer is the Moon and the Moon is distinctly feminine. I think these songs have a very feminine vibe. The music (for the most part) is delicate and watery.

Passed By is a reference to my very first serious relationship and it's about how no matter how long it's been, or what you've been up to, you never forget that. And sometimes I want to take back the bad things and pass into a place that's comfortable, because when I wrote this, I had no closure, it made me a bit uneasy. But it's like, I'll forgive you, and you forgive me. Let's forgive each other and reach a higher state of being.

Twist(H)er, I think is one of the most clever songs (conceptually and lyrically) I've ever written, if I do say so myself. It has a double meaning. It's about a boy who's like a tornado. So mysterious, so beautiful...but destroys everything in his path. There are people that chase them (I'm one of them, metaphorically) and in this song I get to the eye of the twister, and god...it's as still and quiet as perfect calm. Because sometimes he would let me in, but then...he'd change his mind and I was thrown around and left to die again. And so, it's twister as in tornado - but also twist "her" (me)

Wonderland is escapism. It's like...take me somewhere far away, cause maybe then I'll forget what's bothering me. And what was bothering me was the world, and I thought everything was unfair. But there is still a sense of wonderment in the music and the melody, and almost like I'm forcing myself to be happy, to put on another face to take me somewhere else.

Too Bad was written when I was 14 or 15 and it felt like my life was over. I think my emotions had reached a peak and I wanted to give up on everything because my sadness left my body so weak. All I would do is lay in bed and listen to Tori Amos cds. I was in love with my sadness.
And the part that goes; "that's too bad" - was like I was accepting that I felt that way and now, I couldn't, and wouldn't change the depression I was going through then, it taught me a lot.

Conformity is about conforming to my old behaviors. I am the kind of person that doesn't like games, if I liked someone I wanted to let them know, but it seems some people like the mystery of it all. And I guess I was battling with that, should I say something to this boy, or not? That's the kind of trivial, (serious in your head) stuff you go through when you're 15 years old.

Daylight was first, a poem -- like a lot of my songs. But I think this one followed the poem form more than any other. It had to be simple so my voice could breathe into the notes and expand out to paint a picture. Sometimes you get so used to your sadness you begin to worship it. Kurt Cobain sang, "I miss the comfort in being sad" (Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle - In Utero 1994) well there is a comfort, and Daylight is about happiness and contentment barging in to disrupt my "beautiful pain".

Untitled was like a speech to the boy who was too scared to be my lover, so he was just my friend. I wanted to sing it to him, face to face...no music to interfere with it's message...You are hurting me so much, I'd rather not feel at all.
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[Amnesia was written about someone I didn't even know. I had a relationship with him in my head and the bad luck I'd experienced numbed me to any beauty that I may have been receiving. Blaming this person, blaming myself, not knowing where I came from or how I got there. Being so jaded that you can't even remember who you really are.]
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Forsaken is my first and only attempt at a Shakespearian style poem (that ended up being this song), then I twisted my fingers on all the black keys (and one white key) to make it a moment like this: when you walk into an old house, with Victorian decor and you find a mirror and see the most terrible thing staring back at you, yourself.
It's basically a song about self hatred and ending it with kind of a..."misery loves company, wanna join me?"

D-Day is about something that has no resolution. It's a war between two people that never stops. Even though we hadn't spoken in years, it just never stopped. And I stop to say, why the hell are we doing this? It gets us nowhere. But we're constantly getting wounded with our words and our lack thereof. It just goes on and on.

La Lune, an instrumental (that I sometimes sing Sylvia Plath's poem "The Rival" live, as lyrics). It sets the mood to help drift you up into outer space; into a realm where you are forced to go inside yourself and just give yourself room and time to feel. When I listen to these notes, if they had words, they would say, "if you want to, breathe slow, or a little faster...you can cry, or you can smile, you can be strong or you can relax all your muscles and let gravity hold you in your time of weakness".

I Wish is just what it is, a wish. The music had to be written on the pentatonic scale because it has a nursery rhyme/toy box/oriental quality to it. Like a dream. A Lullaby. And I sing this song as a prayer that someday I will have what I want." - Melissa Trinchere

"This record is about the boys that heavily influenced my life. They are divided into the elements: AIR, FIRE, EARTH, WATER because I felt that it was more important that the songs be separated by each boy and his respective element rather than ordered sonically. I could have made a bad decision because the songs might not "flow" as they should. But I don't regret that decision one bit. This EP is all about feelings and they tend to have no logic.

Starting out with Changing Tide, he was the first boy that made my heart thump. I mean I had crushes before, but this one lasted 6 years. It was pretty heavy. We were "friends" although there was a lot of attraction there, you know how that goes. I spent a good chunk of my life chasing after him, trying to help him. It was very frustrating. The chorus; Help the changing tide/today I'll be your bride/tonight I sing so still all against my will...It's like, you think you can shape someone to be what you want them to be, because that's the way you know it's "supposed" to go when really years later, I realized...you are who you are and people don't change.

Captivity is about the same boy, it's like...we are very spiritually connected, so I would feel him in my thoughts and vice versa, I still could if I wanted to. I can feel where his mind is, concerning me, I've rarely ever been wrong. And every once in a while I'd get kinda annoyed that he wanted me to let him go, while he was out there holding on to me.

Here It Is was written just after the new year of 2002 that's when things began crashing down with "the friend" nasty stuff was revealed and my feelings were hurt immensely, as usual - and I'm just kinda saying, well...I'm not surprised things turned out this way. I'm a lover, I'm a feeler and that may seem pathetic and desperate to people like him, he's more cerebral and I tend to gravitate towards matters of the heart.

Le Soleil is a segue into a very powerful phase in my adolescence. It was the first piece of music I ever wrote. I was trying to "get over" my first love and this came pouring out of me. I call it the sun because it's like shining rays of light streaming over my entire being. I started to really understand my grief. Sometimes we're sad and we can't put our finger on why. Well in this case, I knew and instead of seeing my pain as a burden, I learned to appreciate it with this tune. It represents illumination of what's most important, our feelings.

Without You is like a dark room that you sit in during a wonderful time in your life...fearing that this will become your world, very soon. Everything has to end, sometime. And with relationships you either have your run, split - or you get together, get and stay married and die. Either way it is very balanced, you've got your good and you've got your bad, the darkness. Sometimes while in a perfectly blissful state I get kinda scared that I will soon be miserable.

First Love is very self explanatory. When I wrote this song, the first few weeks the words wouldn't come. I got obsessed with the notes. It haunted me. Although I didn't know exactly what the song was going to be about before the lyrics came, but I knew that it was going to end up being about "the first love" because it was dark (in my mind), but I would see his green eyes out of the darkness of the music. Then...boom! The words showed up and this is my favorite song on the record. I love to sing it, I love to play it and I love how it makes me feel.

I Want You is kind of a plea. There is a lot of emotional desperation in this record, a lot of longing. This song might be the anthem, I'm not sure. I went away to college and met this beautiful creature and I wanted him even more because I couldn't have him. That's the way I am sometimes.

Andrew is the "I saved myself from too much heartache this time" song. He's one of the few guys I've actually "dated" in my life. We had a lot of fun together. He was so unreal. A rare breed. I wanted more than he did, so we parted ways just in time for my heart not to be smashed, so I still think of him very fondly. It (the song) has a flow. And when I play this song, it's like I'm stroking his hair. It's very lush and magical, just like the moment in time we spent together."

-Melissa Trinchere