All My Friends
"At seventeen, had a better dream.
Now I'm thirty three and it isn't me "

Regret, that's basically what strikes me most about this song, that it's all about regret. In a way it's similar to "Round Here" wherein you start out your life in an idealistic environment, set on a straight line with the right values. Then "life happens" and you find yourself lost, and everything you learned when you were young don't ammount to anything. It's a very pessimistic way to look at things, but to a degree, it's realistic. Reality bites...and so does this song.

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Of all the songs in the "This Desert Life" this has got to have the hardest edge. Simply because it around one of the most painful feelings a person can ever go through...regret. How many times have we wished that at some point in time you could have done something over again...like rewind your life back a few years and 'do things right'. It's a sucky feeling, but I'm sure we've ll been there before.

The main character in the song basically rambles on about how everyone has left him behind, about all the 'missed chances' in his life wherein he could have done something. I guess in some ways it's a therapeutic song. You roll around in your misery and regret until you realize just how important all those lost moments and lost relationships meant to you. Doing this strengthens your resolve to not let history repeat itself. I'm rambling here...sorry.

I guess what I'm trying to lead to is this, "All My Friends" isn't anything new, I mean Adam has written about these things before...but what sets this apart is how strong the resolve to make changes is. In the bridge he sings "Can you see here? Waiting there? Can you see here? Because I'm almost there. Can you see here waiting there for someone like me?". He recognizes yeah...a lot of people move on in your life, but everything's not lost. You have got to have faith in the few or many 'relationships' with people you have established in the past, because even if they may seemed to have not mattered at all, you could be wrong. Basically, what I'm trying to say is people sometime really don't realize how powerful 'a touch' or 'reaching out to someone" can be. And we take these gestures for granted when little do we know, they could mean the world to others.

Yes the choruses always talk about leaving, and that's what we tend to focus on ourselves, about how we lose touch with so many people over there years..we just mope about it and focus too much on how we 'aren't as close' anymore to them. What we forget is that sometimes, if not most of the times, it's easy to get 'back in touch' with people if we try. I'd confidently say that most people don't forget and are just too scared to admit that, scared because they don't have faith in themselves that they made an impact on someone elses life worth remembering. Take the chance and say hi...again, you might be surprised at the result. Deep down, we're all the same, we all want the same things, all we want is security....all we want is a place to lay our heads.