Five Till Five AM
by Brent Joseph Murphy · Pop · Made with Suno · 0 plays
The story behind this song
I wrote this song about my life and exactly where I was at during that time. It captures that quiet space of looking inward, wrestling with the heavy weight of everything, and just trying to make sense of it all while the hours slip away.
Style
Lyrics
(Tempo: Slow, driving, and heavily rhythmic) (Instrumentation: A gritty, distorted electric guitar palm-muting a steady beat, backed by a slow, thumping bass drum and bagpipes) (Verse 1) Caught right between my self-esteem and my pride I’ve been running through both worlds with nowhere to hide Yeah, I’m fucked up, but I swear it’s worth the ride But tonight I’m looking inward, staring at the tide Eighteen years of a life built up so high Turned to smoke and vanished in the blink of an eye I thought I had a grip, thought I held the line Then something inside just snapped this time In the last three months, it all drifted away Left me sitting in the dark with nothing to say (Verse 2) I need you to know, I need you to see The weight of these shadows closing in on me To solve every need, every endless obsession And let all this anger flow out in confession I'm sitting right here in a shallow kind of peace Screaming into buckets where the lies never cease The laughter and the pain roll into a single sound An echo that bounces from the ceiling to the ground (Chorus) And I’m just sitting here wondering the five W’s tonight Who, what, why, where, and when did I lose the fight? And now the "how" is creeping in, heavy and slow When, although, as if, whenever—where do I go? Is it worth it? Hell yeah, I say it with a laugh Even when I touch the cold breath on the path Staring down the edge, laughing when it’s near But the redundancy of memory is all that I fear (Verse 3) The eye can see the storm that’s gathering inside Collected thoughts running where the broken things hide The simplicity of all the things I’ll never understand Like water slipping straight through a desperate hand I say I don’t know, and I say I don’t care But the silence in my head is getting hard to bear It all used to be me, or at least I thought it was Now I’m spinning in the shadow of the damage it does Eighteen years of weight came and went so fast Left me wondering how a ghost is supposed to last (Verse 4) The clock's ticking down, five minutes till five Just wide awake wondering how I'm still alive If life is just tainted and the world is spin-spun Then all of hell is in and the damage is done I hear the soft secrets as they cry out for peace While the rumors and lies ensure the pain won't decrease There is no comparison to the wounds that they make With every single promise they managed to break (Chorus) And I’ve spent most of my time just trying to be While everything fades into the distance for me Pondering empty thoughts in the dark and the gray Wondering if I chose the right path today Yeah, time keeps on slipping, it's a cold, heavy stone Leaving me here with these thoughts all alone (Bridge) (Tempo slows further, guitar drops out, leaving just a faint, echoing heartbeat pulse) Still, I fear... Yeah, I fear all whom question the space that I’m in Where the ending takes over before we begin To think that someone could truly see through the screen To the parts of the wreckage that stay unseen A mind collecting dust, collecting every word spoken Trying to find the rhythm in a clock that’s been broken If this is a test of my honor and faith I must have been bad to be trapped in this place Like I crossed over the ledge and died in the night And woke up in a hell where there isn't no light Just five till five AM, staring straight at the wall Waiting for the rest of the curtain to fall (Guitar solo - raw, heavy, long sustaining notes that sound like a siren in the distance) (Outro) I don’t know anymore Yeah, the sands just drift away from the shore Eighteen years... gone in two or three months Faced it all down, hit me all at once As I ponder these empty thoughts of endless time Replaying the reasons and the rhythm and rhyme The sands keep on drifting, the shadows grow long And I'm left with the ghost of a midnight song... But I’ll laugh at the edge, tight in the dark Leaving nothing but a question mark Who am I really? Yeah, it's five till five AM... And the world fades away. (Fade out on a single, vibrating guitar chord)