Dead Trees
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Lyrics: You are the sun And I am the seed But you are the axe And I am the tree My tears are the lumber That’s fueling your fire And your brain is so warped With your twisted desire To burn me, to break me, to see me thrown down Trampled and torn and then crushed to the ground Your words are the bomb set to blow up my forest You know that it’s wrong so why do you ignore it ‘Cause every day I come to you And every day I scream Why can’t you see my love for you Behind my wilted leaves You’ve taken something beautiful And polluted it with weeds Mixed love with hate with desperateness In a forest of dead trees You are the sun Two hundred degrees That scorches my branches And withers my leaves You are the knife That carves out my core It’s stealing my life But I’m still wanting more You burn me, you break me, you watch me fall down Trampled and torn and then crushed to the ground Your words are the bomb set to blow up my forest You know that it’s wrong so why do you ignore it ‘Cause every day I come to you And every day I scream Why can’t you see my love for you Behind my wilted leaves You’ve taken something beautiful And polluted it with weeds Mixed love with hate with desperateness In a forest of dead trees I’ve tried so hard and it’s hopeless to think you’ll ever change And I wait for the day when you come with your blades To finish the job that you started And while part of me still wants to hold on To those thin fragile roots connecting me and you I know I’ll be better off to break away and start new Break away and start new You are the vine To choke back my tree But I am a sapling And I’ve just broken free In my forest of dead trees |
Copyright 2026
Lyrics by Kelsey Gallant (2012, minor edits 2024) Melody by Kelsey Gallant and Cam Gallant (2024) Music by Joe Gautrey Produced by Cam Gallant Mixed by Cam Gallant Tuned by Cam Gallant Video filmed by Lamar Weaver and Kelsey Gallant Video assembled by Kelsey Gallant The Story Behind The Song:
These lyrics were inspired by a conversation I had with a friend who was being emotionally mistreated by someone she was hanging out with. My friend was expressing her feelings with analogies like, "He's the axe, I'm the tree." I was upset on her behalf, and when I got home that day I wrote this song from her perspective. These lyrics remained tuneless until 2024, when I was visiting my brother Cam in Austin, Texas. When we're together, we enjoy browsing through licensed instrumental tracks to see if we can find inspiration for new songs. We found this piano track by Joe Gautrey, and thought it may fit well with my "Dead Trees" lyrics. I started singing the lyrics, making up a tune as I went along. Later, over Christmas vacation, I recorded multiple complete takes of the song, making up variations of the tune each time. Cam listened to all of the recordings and spliced together his favorite takes for each line. An interesting fact about this song is that the original lyrics I wrote in 2012 included another full chorus at the end of the song, with slightly changed lyrics this time: Because every day I came to you And every day I screamed And you couldn’t see my love for you Behind my wilted leaves You’ve taken something beautiful And polluted it with weeds But I’m done with all this desperateness And I’m planting my own seeds I wrote those lyrics to imbue a little more hope into the song, and to encourage anyone who's in a situation like my friend was in to stop allowing themselves to be mistreated. Unfortunately, the instrumental track was not long enough to include another chorus, but I felt that the lines about breaking free accomplished my goal. 
album cover design: Kelsey Gallant |
