Too Many Birthday Plates

In 1996 I was living in Oxford, Mississippi. For a Mississippi town it was fairly progressive, but by any normal comparison was still pretty pumped to be white.

One day for my lunch hour I went to a restaurant in the local mall, Legends. Walking thru the restaurant to the back I passed a long table covered with birthday plates and balloons and other birthday paraphernalia. In the center was a black man with (presumably) his son. They were both beaming, excited about the birthday party to come. I was pumped for the kid myself, and continued walking to my booth in the back.

After eating a sensible meal of vegetables, super-foods and superduper-foods, I was walking back thru the restaurant to leave when I saw the table. I saw the father. And the kid.

And nobody else.

Nobody had come to the kid's damn birthday party.

I'll never forget their heartbroken faces. I barely made it out and into my car before some waterworks came out of my salty eyes. And yes, him being black and in Mississippi made it even worse.

20+ years later, it's happened again. To a white kid, but still heartbreaking.

Ugh.

I went home that day and wrote a song, Too Many Birthday Plates. It went on to become a show staple, I'm pretty sure my band played it at every show we did from 1999-2012. One day The Barber and I were sitting around 100 Metro and decided to cut a demo of it, which is below. Yes, our fretwork changed the way rock guitar was played. Yes, we challenged how someone could be transformed by music.

But I can still see that kid and his dad. And I can still feel it.