Remembering My Forgettable Music Career #4: "Lost"

Lost (May 1994)

Music by Josh Tinley and Liquid Diet
Lyrics by Josh Tinley
First performed by Liquid Diet, July 1994
Released on Drywall's No Mustard, April 1995

Liquid Diet was:

Josh Tinley: Vocals, bass
Brian Fuzzell: Drums
Tim Gober: Guitar

Free download: Lost (MP3)

"Lost" is a lot like Dead Frog: It is in A minor; its lyrics are about sadness, isolation, and hopelessness; the vocal melody closely mirrors the bass line; the transitions from one part of the song to the next are awkward; and there are multiple choruses with no verses. Overall, I would say that "Lost" is a better song than "Dead Frog," though the lyrics are weaker and it lacks the distinction of being my "first rock song."

For some reason "Lost" was selected over stronger songs (such as "Broken Fools" and "Summer Days") to appear on Drywall's debut EP, No Mustard. "Lost" is probably the most forgettable song on that most forgettable of albums. If anything, the song might stand out because of the especially weak lyrics in the third verse:

I got bored the other day
While I was wasting time at work
So I dug into my mind
And I wrote another verse
I don't care about my pants
I don't care about my shirt
I just gotta be myself
And I don't have to rhyme

Of course, the other verses are almost as bad. (e.g. "I sniff a lot of glue, and I'm getting kind of high." Only "kind of high," mind you.) If "Dead Frog" was a cry for help; "Lost" was a cry for humiliation, an indication that my angst shouldn't be taken seriously. By the time I wrote "Lost," maybe it shouldn't have been. In April of 1994, I was sad, lonely, and distraught. By May, I had a bass guitar, a rock band, and an attitude. I was on the verge of becoming an entirely different person than the one who, during the spring of his junior year of high school, had glamorized suicide and become obsessed with his own depression.