There’s a version of this song that’s been sitting half-finished since 2022. I picked it back up for Almost Alive, the piano EP I’ve been slowly building, and it still says what I needed it to say back then, maybe it means more now. Below is a demo of the song, a description of the meanin, then the lyrics/poem of the song itself.

Before It’s Gone is not really about a single moment of failure through the year. It’s about the slow count you keep withen yourself when a year ends and you realize you don’t anything to show for it. The song opens in January, and by the second line my plans are already dead. That’s the whole shape of it, plans and hope always collapsing into habit, habit collapsing into forgetting, years stacking up and the older I grow.

Musically, I kept it stripped down on purpose. Solo piano electric piano through cubase, low register, nothing dressed up and a cheap dynamic mic and some Waves vocal fx. The bridge drops out almost entirely, just stripped minor keys, because the lyric there isn’t trying to resolve anything. It’s the moment the me the narrator of the story stops looking for meaning and I just admit after all these years nothings ever going to save me. Bringing the chorus back after that quieter, more resigned, felt better than going to the classic song that ends in a cathartic crescendo of loudness. Nothing gets fixed in this song or my life. That’s the point.

A singular line in the second verse “counted it like my pills daily” ,that’s probably the center of my whole self dynamic and the song. Not dramatic, just routine. That’s what wasted time actually feels like most of the time, not a crisis but a panic to make sure everythings in place perfectly and good and then the days gone… Before its gone..

By the end, the is partially rewritten. It starts “I want to be proud of something” and by the last pass it’s “I want to feel something that isn’t already rot.” Same shape, just a realization of what ive been doing, rotting. That shift is the song to hopefull saying I want to do something before its gone to, repeating before its gone because its already gone and im repeating it trying to get it back..

“Before It’s Gone” is a solo piano track from the Almost Alive piano EP.

Lyrics

Verse 1

January opened its arms
my plans killed themselves by June
Im farther backwards than I was before
I kept no promises, no truths
the hourglass doesn't forgive
it just moves on without you

Verse 2

I had a year and Ive wasted it
counted it like my pills daily
making days blur into the months
most nights I cant remember at all
Even if I wrote it down
I cant seem to bring the memory through

Chorus

Before it's gone
before it's gone
I dont want to do anymore wrong
before it's gone
before it's gone
I want to be proud of something

Verse 3
Some months I paced through
rooms and house of people i never knew
And when I saw my reflection
and didn't recognize my faces wrinkled time
i realized nothing can save me
Nothing is going to be able to.

Bridge
(bare — just piano, low register, minor)
But maybe nothings really gone
it just stopped mattering as my age grew high
Because I quit checking the days
if their was any happiness in life.

Chorus (same, quieter, more resigned)
Before it's gone
before it's gone
I want to feel something
that isn't already rot
not to fix what's broken —
it was never going to hold
before it's gone
before it's gone

Outro
(fragmented, spoken almost, trailing off)
before it's gone...
before it's...
gone.