In another special BONUS installment of BackStory, Kevin Harrison emerges from “New Jersey and The Carolinas” to tell us the story behind his song “Here I am.”

The “BackStory” to Here I Am is pretty much the back story to a year of my life. Every once and a while a song comes out that just puts all of the emotions you’ve been feeling on the table, and those are the songs that end up being my favorites  because their inspiration is timeless.

While the obvious theme of the “Here I Am” is the attempt to move on at the end of a relationship, the story goes a bit deeper…

At the age of twenty, I lost my best friend to a car accident and that sent me into a complete tailspin for the next year. When you’re world gets turned upside down, I think most people either have the instinct to lean heavy on those they love the most, or to shut down and depend only on themselves. Well, I went with the first option and asked way too much of the girl I’d had been dating for the previous two years. Now that relationship had its share of issues beforehand, but my seemingly justified selfishness and need for her to “save me” ended up being too much for her to bear. Lines like “I tried to pin the blame/ on her lies and what’s his name” make it pretty clear what eventually happened. But in the end, the song is my way of taking some share of blame and learning to forgive, while at the same time putting aside the past and working my way to a new future.

“Here I Am” is laid out as a transition from “we” to “I”. The last line of the first chorus is “Now here we are,” with that changing to “Now here I am” by the end of the song. That’s a pretty big accomplishment after devoting so much of your life, and depending so much upon, one person (and to be honest, it’s a transition that wasn’t quite complete when I wrote the song). Repeating the words “Here I Am” at the top of my lungs to end the song is my way of telling the world that I’m starting over as a stronger person—while I’m also trying to convince myself of that very same thing.

Here I Am

Woke up this morning and I could have sworn she was lying there
Turned over to realize her side of the bed was painfully bare
Then I remembered that she’d be gone, gone for so long
But months and months later sleeping alone still feels so wrong

So I tried to pin the blame
On her lies and what’s his name
But I finally figured out what came between

Needed her to save me
She needed to be free
There was no working it out once we’d fallen that far
I needed someone to lean on
She couldn’t be strong
Enough for both of us so I pushed her too far
Now here we are

I was so lost, falling so fast, not sure when I’d land
With no one to turn to, and nowhere to go, I reached out for your hand
But I was grasping at straws, you’d been gone all along, I just couldn’t see
That you needed more than a burden to store, You needed me

So I screamed your name out loud
But the answer was never found
No one caught me before I hit the ground

Needed you to save me
You needed to be free
There was no working it out once we’d fallen that far
I needed someone to lean on
And she could not be strong
Enough for both of us so I pushed her, you know that I pushed her too far
Now here we are
Now here I am

Well I dust myself off and stand, on my own two feet again
And as I start singing this song
I realize what’s been there all along

Don’t need you to save me
I’m finally free
To lie in this bed all alone and not give a damn
If there’s no one beside me
Took too long for me to see
That there are things in this life that I don’t have to understand
Now here I am
Now here I am
Here I am
Here I am