Song Lyric Sunday

This week’s prompt for Song Lyric Sunday is “colors”. For this I immediately went to one of my favorites – “Amaranthine” by Amaranthe, but the lyrics to the song seem to intend one of the other definitions, such as “undying” more so than the pink/red color. That might be cheating so instead I am going with “Blue Skies” by Sully Erna.

Sully Erna (Salvatore Paul Erna, Jr.) is the frontman for the band Godsmack. This particular song, however, is one of his many solo performances. Being a fan of both Godsmack and Sully Erna individually, you can tell a difference between the music performed by Godsmack vs his solo performances. His voice, however, is unique and distinctive. Sully claims that when he has an idea for music he pursues it and if it isn’t developing into a song for Godsmack, he sets it aside to be part of his solo work.

Sully’s father was a musician (trumpet) in Sicily and was the first influence for Sully. Sully has participated in the World Series of Poker and was instrumental, along with other bands, to raise relief for the Haiti Earthquake in 2010.

Blue Skies was written by Sully Erna and is off his solo album, Hometown Life, which was released on September 30, 2016. This was Sully’s second solo album. Sully states in an interview that when he does solo albums, he does not write for critics or anyone else. He experiments to see what goes well together.

As for the meaning of the song, I wasn’t able to find an official interview with Sully about his thoughts behind the lyrics, but the lyrics seem to be relatively clear and not in much need of translating. For me personally, this song is about an individual – looking square in the mirror and realizing he/she is the only one who can change their circumstances after accepting a not-so-perfect past. This isn’t official, as I said, and a lot of lyrics are self-reflective (to me). My favorite line is “And maybe I ended up like you said there is hollow, broken shell; All I know is I won’t live inside your inside your burning hell”. In my struggle to understand my own state of mental shakiness, I have learned that the ONLY one who can decide to make my life better is me.

That being said…here is a live performance of Blue Skies, sung by Sully Erna. Knowing a little bit about the caring, kind and loving husband and father this man is, makes him more endearing to me.

I’m further every day from what I used to be
I left a life behind that’s no longer me
And through the open road I know I lost control
But now it teaches me how much I, how much I don’t know

Can you take me away to blue skies?
Can you promise me you’ll try
And if you take me there to blue skies
I know that I will always feel your love,
Can you take me away to blue skies

Excepting what I used to be and I know I lie,
But despite of what you think I’ve grown million times
And maybe I ended up like you said there is hollow, broken shell
All I know is I won’t live inside your inside your burning hell

And if you take me there to blue skies
And can you promise me you’ll try
And if you take me there to blue skies
I know that I will always feel your love knowing than I’m

Taking in all that I can
spitting out of lesser men a selfish pride
Just let it be a taped on the inside
Taking all I can throwing away this lesser men
a blacken heard all for a part

Can you take me there to blue skies
Can you promise me you’ll try
And if you take me away to blue skies
I know that I will always feel your love
Can you take away me to blue skies oh
Take me away from blue skies oh
Take me away to blue skies