This might be my favorite song on this record. Well, there are a couple other contenders, but I have a soft spot for this one. It was the tune that snuck in at the end, as we were already pretty much done with pre-production when I wrote this. I placed it as the first track on the EP I released, and who knows, maybe I'll put it first on the full length as well. That's the beauty of releasing something after going crazy and abandoning it. I can do whatever the fuck I want.

I had the idea for this song as I was walking by an old punk house that I spent a lot of time in over the years. When I first moved to Boston in 1994, the first punks I met (that I liked) lived in Allston at 19 Saunders St. For those unfamiliar with Boston, Allston is awful and/or wonderful, depending on who you ask. I lean more towards “awful” these days. When I first moved to the area it was still a relatively cheap place to live, but over the years it's become more of a open space dormitory for students from Boston University, Boston College, and a bit of Harvard University, as it's in the middle of all three adult day care centers. It was heading that way even when I first arrived, but didn't quite have the level of chain stores mixed with date rape bars that it has now. Pretty much like every other major city, the owners reclaimed their land. It was worth something again.

Over the years, 19 Saunders became a kind of second home to me. Even as the people that I first met moved out, they were replaced by people I had befriended as time passed. I would stay there sometimes when I was living across the city and too drunk or lazy to get home. A few times I just broke in through the window to have a couch to crash on. Fast forward a few years to 2000, and we had a great network of houses and apartments for all our bands at the time (Crash and Burn, The Unseen, Global Threat, and other ones that I can't think of cause I'm old). Between Saunders St, an apartment on Quint Ave, and the punk house I was living in on Dustin St (all a quick walk to each other), there was always a place to go and use a basement to practice, or just drink and inevitably cause trouble. I find myself conflicted these days when I'm surrounded by young punkers who are acting like idiots. It bugs the shit out of me because I find it boring and repetitive, but then I have to remind myself that we used to just show up at college parties with the sole purpose of fucking shit up and getting in fights. With the amount of trouble I've caused (let alone my friends, some of which were waaaaaay crazier than I), I need to let the kids have their fun. Then I wonder why the hell I'm around people so much younger than me anyway, and I remember that I'm an idiot and still play and love punk rock.

So time passes, and eventually the residents of Saunders St move out, and this time there's no next batch of punks to take it over. The owners remodel and make the house nice. A proper home for the children of the captains of industry. The parents of college students will pay significantly more so their spawn can live in the newly renovated playground that's close to their campus.

It had been a few years since that happened, but one day I walked by the old house on Saunders on my way to the practice space, and came up with the idea for “Ruins”, which I wrote as soon as I got there. You know those decaying Roman and Greek structures? These places are like that for me. I see ruins where they see progress. Whether it's The Rat being some fancy hotel, New Alliance being condos, or Saunders St being upgraded for a wealthy parent to cosign on, they're all ruins to me. No matter how much remodeling you do, I can still see our spray paint on those walls. Maybe one day, when the cities start to fall apart again, and the affluent reclaim their suburbs, we'll have those places back. Not us specifically, as we'll all be dead, but those that come after us, the ones who share our mindset. They'll paint new slogans on the wall and make new noise within the decay.

And then the ruins will be beautiful once again.