It's Not My Fault

It’s Not My Fault

Each year I participate in a very special program at the VA called the National Veterans Creative Arts Competition. Almost 3,000 veterans from all over the country compete in 45 categories of artistic endeavor ranging from painting and sculpting to needlecrafts to singing, dancing and performing. When I lived in Chicago, I sang in the VA chorus there and we won three gold medals in two years. Upon moving to Danville, I began to compete as a solo artist. In 2004 I won a silver medal for vocal solo comedy, singing a parody written by the Capitol Steps, called God Bless My SUV. And last year I won a gold medal for a song I wrote about my bi-polar disorder. The song is “It’s Not My Fault,” and I’d like to share it with you here.

IT’S NOT MY FAULT

It’s not my fault,

Baby I’d never hurt you

It’s not my fault,

I’d die before I’d desert you

It’s not my fault…

Baby—I love you.

When the darkness fills my head,

And I feel that awful dread

I can’t control it.

When I feel the blinding rage

And I should be in a cage

You see I know it.

So I reach for what I can find

To ease the pain in my mind

Or at least to slow it.

And I sent you far, far away

In hopes that you would be safe

And that you would know it.

Repeat Chorus

I finally got the help I that needed

And the rage at last has receded

And I try not to blow it.

And now you’ve grown up so fast

And that pain is far in the past

Each day I show it.

Like Rhiannon I have survived

And kept all my love alive

So that I can bestow it.

On you and now on your kids

I’m no longer out on the skids

And I’m finally growing.