FLEE

CATEGORY

Human Behaviour
Life Experience
Danger
Conflict
Relationships
Self-Preservation

 

PRIMARY EMOTION

Urgency

ALSO FITS

Instinct
Pressure
Anger
Fear
Anxiety
Self-Control
Personal Boundaries
Relief
Peace

WHAT THIS SONG IS ABOUT

FLEE is about knowing when enough is enough.

There are times when standing your ground is absolutely the right thing to do. There are other times when staying proves nothing except that you stayed too long.

I’ve lived enough of both to know the difference isn’t always obvious while you’re standing in the middle of it.

I’ve dealt with drunks. I’ve dealt with dangerous people. I’ve dealt with people whose attitude could change the temperature of a room. I’ve been around situations where you can almost see trouble coming before anything actually happens. I’ve also been through a previous relationship that taught me lessons about recognizing when something isn’t good for you anymore.

That is one side of FLEE.

But I wanted the song to go further than physical danger.

You can need to flee somebody’s attitude.

You can need to flee an argument before anger takes over.

You can need to flee a relationship that keeps dragging you somewhere you don’t want to go.

You can need to flee somebody else’s chaos.

And sometimes there isn’t another person to flee from at all.

Sometimes you need five minutes alone.

Sometimes the room feels too small. There are too many voices. Too much pressure. Too much fucking noise. You need a road with nobody on it or a closed door and a little silence.

That isn’t the same as running away from your problems.

Sometimes you’re simply creating enough distance to breathe and think clearly again.

That’s the larger meaning behind FLEE.

 

THE STORY BEHIND THE SONG

This song started with the idea of dangerous people, but the more I thought about the word FLEE, the more places I could see it appearing throughout my own life.

Danger doesn’t have one face.

Sometimes it’s the obvious person looking for a fight.

Sometimes it’s the drunk whose judgment disappeared several drinks ago.

Sometimes it’s somebody with a temper who wants you to join them in losing yours.

Sometimes nobody throws a punch at all. A person can cause plenty of damage with their mouth, their attitude, their manipulation or the atmosphere they create everywhere they go.

I’ve experienced enough bullshit in my life to understand how easily somebody else’s behaviour can become your problem if you allow yourself to get pulled into it.

Relationships taught me another side of this.

When history and feelings are involved, leaving becomes much more complicated than simply turning around and walking out a door. You can keep hoping something will improve. You can ignore things you probably shouldn’t ignore. You can convince yourself to give something one more chance.

I’m not interested in using this song to attack anybody from my past.

I’m interested in what those experiences taught me.

Eventually you have to recognize patterns.

Then there is the completely different side of FLEE that became just as important to me.

Sometimes I don’t need to escape a dangerous person.

I need a moment.

I need the noise to stop.

I need some air.

I need to get away from everything long enough to settle myself and hear my own thoughts again.

That’s why this song moves from fists, knives, drunks and dangerous people into silence, breathing and relief.

It isn’t one kind of fleeing.

It’s many.

 

`WHY I WROTE THIS SONG

I wrote FLEE because I’ve learned that walking away and being weak are not the same thing.

Pride can tell you otherwise.

Somebody challenges you and suddenly you feel like you have something to prove.

Somebody insults you and you want the last word.

Somebody pushes hard enough and anger starts making decisions that your better judgment wouldn’t make.

That’s where one of the most important ideas in the song comes from:

“Before anger decides for U”

There is a small window where you still control what happens next.

Maybe you speak.

Maybe you stand your ground.

Maybe you defend yourself if you genuinely have to.

Maybe you walk away.

The important thing is that you’re still making the decision.

I wanted FLEE to challenge the idea that strength always means moving forward.

Sometimes strength is one step backward.

 

WHY THIS MATTERS TO ME

This isn’t a subject I had to invent.

Different versions of it have crossed my life.

I’ve seen what alcohol can do to judgment.

I’ve seen tempers change situations quickly.

I’ve experienced relationships that taught me about boundaries.

I’ve had moments where getting away from the noise and pressure was exactly what I needed.

And I’ve had enough life experience to look backward and recognize situations where leaving sooner would probably have been the better decision.

I’m not pretending I’ve always handled everything perfectly.

I haven’t.

That’s part of the reason the song matters.

Some lessons aren’t learned because somebody explained them beautifully to you.

Sometimes you learn because life keeps putting the lesson in front of you until you finally understand what it’s trying to say.

FLEE carries some of those lessons.

WHY THIS SONG FITS MOITA

One word can open an enormous door.

Flee traditionally carries the idea of getting away from danger or moving toward safety. 

But I wanted to take that basic human action and ask what it can mean in everyday life.

When is leaving fear?

When is leaving intelligence?

When does standing your ground become stubbornness?

When does another person’s anger start controlling you?

When does love become something you’re holding onto because of yesterday instead of what is happening today?

When do you need to stop talking?

When do you need five minutes alone?

And when do you need to get the hell out?

Those questions are exactly why this belongs inside MOITA.

The song gives you the command.

The story asks you to think about when that command matters.

READ THIS FIRST

Don’t read FLEE as advice to run from every difficult thing in life.

That’s not what I’m saying.

Life requires us to stand sometimes.

There are conversations we shouldn’t avoid.

There are people worth fighting for.

There are problems that won’t disappear because we close the door.

There are principles worth defending.

FLEE is about judgment.

It’s about recognizing the difference between a battle worth fighting and a battle that is going to leave everybody worse off.

It’s about recognizing when another person’s behaviour is starting to control yours.

It’s about understanding that needing a little space doesn’t automatically mean you’re abandoning anything.

And when genuine danger is involved, it’s about remembering that getting away safely matters more than winning an argument.

The song gets loud because sometimes the message needs to be loud.

But underneath all that aggression is something surprisingly simple.

Peace.

 

FULL LYRICS

FLEE

 Some people walk in carrying gasoline
Looking for a match and a reason to scream
Some use their fists some poison the room
Some never touch you but still bring the doom

U can see it coming in the look in their eyes
That little invitation to step inside
But every battle doesn’t need your name
Sometimes walking away wins the fucking game

Know what you’re facing
Know when to leave
U don’t have to prove yourself
Just because you can bleed

FLEE
When the danger gets too close
FLEE
When you’re choking on the smoke
FLEE
You don’t have to stand and fight
Just to prove that U were right

FLEE
When your lungs are begging breathe
FLEE
When your mind says fucking leave
Run from the fire
Run from the fool
Sometimes getting out alive
Is the strongest fucking move

There are dangerous mouths with innocent hands
Dangerous smiles with dangerous plans
A temper can turn in a fraction of time
One stupid second can destroy two lives

There’s the drunk at the bar who wants you to swing
The jealous lover turning love into strings
The friend who keeps pulling U into their mess
The kind of human storm that never lets U rest

Know what you’re facing
Know when to leave
Not every threat has a weapon
Some just make it hard to breathe

FLEE
When the danger gets too close
FLEE
When you’re choking on the smoke
FLEE
You don’t have to stand and fight
Just to prove that U were right

FLEE
FLEE

FLEE
FLEE

FLEE
FLEE

But danger isn’t always another man’s face
Sometimes it’s pressure U need to escape
Four walls closing and your chest gets tight
Too many voices too much fucking noise

Maybe you need a road with nobody there
A locked bedroom door and a little clean air
Maybe five damn minutes where nobody speaks
Is all that it takes to get back on your feet

You don’t need permission
You don’t need a reason
You don’t owe everybody
Every minute you’re breathing

GET OUT
Before anger decides for U

GET OUT
Before one bad moment becomes something U can’t undo

STEP BACK
Before the pressure takes control

WALK AWAY
Before somebody else decides the price of your soul

And when you’re finally alone
Let the silence do its work
Let your heartbeat find its rhythm
Let the pressure lose its grip

One breath
Then another
No shouting
No fight

Sometimes U have to leave the darkness
Just to remember what feels like light

FLEE

FLEE
FLEE

FLEE
From the fist
From the knife
From the mouth full of spite

FLEE
From the rage
From the trap
From the point of no coming back

FLEE
From the pressure in your head FLEE
From the words you might regret FLEE
From the room that steals your air FLEE
U don’t have to fucking stay there FLEE

Not because you’re fucking weak
FLEE FLEE
Because U know what peace can mean

FLEE FLEE

There are battles worth fighting
There are battles for fools
Sometimes getting out alive
Is the strongest fucking move

Know when to fight
Know when to speak
Know when to stand
And know when to

FLEE

SECTION ONE

LYRIC JOURNEY

PART 1

FLEE begins with somebody entering the room.

Some people walk in carrying gasoline
Looking for a match and a reason to scream

I wanted to start there because trouble doesn’t always begin when somebody throws the first punch.

Sometimes you know something is wrong before anything actually happens.

I’ve dealt with people like that in my life. You can almost feel what they brought through the door with them. They’re already wound up. Maybe they’re angry. Maybe they’re drunk. Maybe they’re carrying something from somewhere else and looking for a place to unload it.

The gasoline isn’t real gasoline.

It’s everything that person is already carrying.

Their anger.

Their attitude.

Their need for confrontation.

Their willingness to turn something small into something much bigger.

All they need now is the match.

Sometimes they’ll look around until they find one.

Sometimes they’ll try to make you become one.

Some use their fists some poison the room
Some never touch you but still bring the doom

This is where I wanted to make something clear very early in the song.

Danger doesn’t have one face.

The person using their fists is easy to recognize. Once somebody becomes physically violent, there isn’t much confusion about what you’re dealing with.

But what about the person who never touches you?

I’ve met people who can change the entire feeling of a place just by the way they behave.

They walk in and everybody becomes a little more careful.

People watch what they say.

People start measuring their words.

You know one wrong comment could start something.

That is what I mean by poisoning the room.

There are people who can do plenty of damage without ever putting their hands on anybody.

Words can do it.

Threats can do it.

Manipulation can do it.

An attitude can do it.

Constant confrontation can do it.

Sometimes the most exhausting person in the room is the one who hasn’t technically done anything yet.

Everybody is simply waiting for them to do it.

U can see it coming in the look in their eyes
That little invitation to step inside

I’ve seen that look.

There are times when you know somebody wants you to react.

Maybe they say something directly.

Maybe they don’t have to.

The eyes can say enough.

Come on.

Say something.

Do something.

Give me the excuse I’m looking for.

That’s why I called it an invitation.

Because the next part still requires something from me.

I have to accept.

That’s something I’ve understood better as I’ve gotten older.

Another person can create the situation.

They can provoke.

They can insult.

They can push.

They can try everything they know to get under my skin.

But there is still a moment where I have a decision.

Do I step inside?

Or do I leave their invitation sitting there?

I’ve stepped inside enough bullshit in my life to understand that accepting the invitation doesn’t always prove what you think it proves.

Sometimes you’re simply giving the other person exactly what they wanted.

But every battle doesn’t need your name
Sometimes walking away wins the fucking game

That is the first real lesson of FLEE.

Every battle doesn’t need my name on it.

That doesn’t mean I won’t stand up for myself.

It doesn’t mean I won’t defend something important.

It doesn’t mean I suddenly became afraid of confrontation.

It means I’m learning to ask whether this particular confrontation deserves anything from me.

That’s a completely different question.

When you’re younger, pride can answer before your brain gets a chance.

Somebody challenges you and you feel like you have to respond.

If you leave, maybe they’ll think you’re scared.

Maybe they’ll think they won.

Maybe somebody watching will think you backed down.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to ask myself why another person’s opinion should have that much control over what I do.

If I know the situation is stupid, why should I make it less stupid by joining it?

Sometimes walking away wins the fucking game because you refused to play the game in the first place.

Know what you’re facing
Know when to leave

These two lines have to stay together.

I’m not saying leave every difficult situation.

The first instruction is know what you’re facing.

Look at it.

Understand it.

Is this something that needs to be dealt with?

Is this somebody who can actually have a conversation?

Is this a disagreement that can be worked through?

Is this somebody who is angry but still listening?

Or am I standing in front of somebody who doesn’t want a solution at all?

There is a big difference.

Knowing when to leave starts with knowing what you’re standing in.

U don’t have to prove yourself
Just because you can bleed

Being able to take a punch doesn’t mean you need to take one.

Being capable of fighting doesn’t mean fighting is always strength.

I think men especially can get caught in this idea that walking away says something about them.

You’re weak.

You’re scared.

You backed down.

I’ve lived enough life now to know that there are much worse things than somebody thinking I’m scared.

There are consequences that don’t disappear tomorrow.

There are decisions that follow you.

There are things you can do in seconds that you may spend years wishing you hadn’t done.

So if the only reason I’m staying is because I need to prove something, maybe I need to ask myself exactly who I’m proving it to.

Then the chorus doesn’t ask anymore.

It gives the command.

FLEE
When the danger gets too close

There is a point where thinking about whether to leave is over.

Danger has moved too close.

That’s why FLEE stands by itself.

It’s supposed to hit hard.

Get out.

FLEE
When you’re choking on the smoke

The song started with gasoline.

Now there’s smoke.

Something changed.

The possibility of trouble is becoming the reality of trouble.

And smoke does something else in this song.

It affects your breathing.

That becomes important later because FLEE is eventually going to move away from physical danger and into pressure, noise and that feeling of needing air.

At this point we’re not there yet.

Right now we’re still standing close to the fire.

FLEE
You don’t have to stand and fight
Just to prove that U were right

Being right can become dangerous when proving you’re right becomes more important than everything else.

I’ve been in arguments where you know exactly what you mean.

You know the other person is wrong.

You want them to admit it.

Sometimes they aren’t going to.

Now what?

How far am I prepared to take something just because I want another person to acknowledge that I’m right?

That’s where pride can turn a disagreement into something it never needed to become.

There are times when being right isn’t worth what proving it might cost.

FLEE
When your lungs are begging breathe
FLEE
When your mind says fucking leave

Now the warning is coming from inside.

Your body is telling you something.

Your mind is telling you something.

Get away from this.

That doesn’t mean every uncomfortable feeling is proof that you’re in danger. Life would become impossible if we treated every uncomfortable moment that way.

What I’m talking about here is recognizing yourself.

Knowing when you’ve reached the point where remaining in the situation isn’t helping anything.

Sometimes you can feel that before you can explain it.

You just know.

I need out.

Run from the fire
Run from the fool

The fire is whatever the situation has become.

The fool might be the person creating it.

But there’s something else in that line that I think is worth admitting.

I can become the fool too.

If I recognize exactly what is happening and still allow pride to pull me deeper into it, then I can’t put everything on the other person.

At some point my decisions belong to me.

That’s part of what FLEE is asking me to accept.

Sometimes getting out alive
Is the strongest fucking move

This is the line the entire first part of the song has been walking toward.

Sometimes.

That word matters.

I didn’t write that leaving is always the strongest move.

It isn’t.

There are times when we have to stand.

There are times when we have to speak.

There are things worth fighting for.

But there are also moments where getting yourself out of a dangerous situation is the victory.

Nobody has to raise your hand afterward.

Nobody has to tell you that you won.

Maybe the person you walked away from thinks they won.

Let them.

You still get to go home.

You still have tomorrow.

You still have the opportunity to decide what happens next.

Then Verse 2 begins to put faces on the different kinds of danger the opening introduced.

There are dangerous mouths with innocent hands
Dangerous smiles with dangerous plans

The hands are innocent because they haven’t done anything.

The mouth may already have done plenty.

That’s the contradiction I wanted.

We tend to look for danger in obvious places.

The raised fist.

The weapon.

The person screaming.

But some people don’t announce themselves that clearly.

A smile doesn’t guarantee good intentions.

A calm voice doesn’t guarantee good intentions either.

And somebody doesn’t have to physically hurt you before you start paying attention to the way they behave.

There is also something important here that I don’t want to lose.

We shouldn’t become suspicious of everybody.

That’s not what FLEE is about.

It’s about patterns.

It’s about behaviour.

It’s about learning from experience without becoming afraid of the entire world.

A temper can turn in a fraction of time
One stupid second can destroy two lives

This is where the song moves from danger into consequences.

A fraction of time.

One stupid second.

That’s all it can take.

Think about how ridiculous that is.

Two people can spend decades building their lives and then make a decision in seconds that changes everything.

Sometimes the original argument wasn’t even important.

Maybe tomorrow neither person would have cared about it.

But what happened during the argument can still matter tomorrow.

And the day after that.

And years after that.

I’ve lived enough confrontation and seen enough bullshit to understand why that second before something happens matters so much.

That’s where the decision still exists.

That’s where somebody can still stop.

Then the song takes us somewhere very familiar.

There’s the drunk at the bar who wants you to swing

I’ve dealt with drunks.

I know what it’s like when somebody isn’t thinking the way they normally would.

But the important part of this lyric isn’t simply that the person is drunk.

It’s that he wants you to swing.

There is that invitation again.

The same invitation from the beginning.

He needs me to participate.

He wants the reaction.

Maybe he wants the excuse.

Maybe pride has taken over.

Maybe alcohol has made a stupid situation feel important.

Whatever is happening inside him doesn’t have to become what happens inside me.

If I can recognize that moment, I still have a choice.

And that is where FLEE is about to move into something even more complicated.

Because the next person isn’t a stranger at the bar.

The next person is somebody you may love.

SECTION ONE

LYRIC JOURNEY

PART 2

The jealous lover turning love into strings

Now FLEE moves from somebody you can simply walk away from at a bar into something much more complicated.

Love.

That’s different.

When you care about somebody, you don’t look at the situation with the same distance you have with a stranger.

There are feelings involved.

There is history.

There are memories.

There may be years invested in one another.

There may still be good things sitting beside the bad things.

That’s what makes relationships complicated.

The word I wanted here was strings.

Strings can connect two people.

But strings can also pull.

They can tighten.

They can control.

There is a point where jealousy can stop feeling like somebody cares and start feeling like somebody is trying to control the relationship.

I’ve learned things about that through my own life and through a previous relationship.

I’m not saying this particular lyric is a description of one specific person or one specific event.

That’s not what I’m doing with FLEE.

I’m taking what I’ve lived, what I’ve seen and what I’ve learned and putting those things into a larger human story.

One thing experience taught me is that leaving somebody you have feelings for is nothing like walking away from an idiot looking for a fight.

You can know something isn’t right and still remember everything that once was right.

That’s where people can stay longer than somebody standing outside the relationship understands.

The friend who keeps pulling U into their mess

Now the relationship changes again.

This time it’s a friend.

That matters because sometimes the people who pull us toward trouble aren’t people we consider enemies.

We may actually care about them.

Maybe we’ve known them for years.

Maybe we’ve been through things together.

Maybe loyalty is part of what keeps us involved.

But loyalty can become complicated when somebody repeatedly creates the same problems and keeps pulling you into them.

There is a difference between helping a friend and following a friend into every pile of shit they create.

Sometimes helping means being there.

Sometimes helping means telling them the truth.

And sometimes helping yourself means stepping back.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you stopped caring.

It may mean you finally recognized that their choices don’t automatically have to become your choices.

The kind of human storm that never lets U rest

I like the idea of a human storm because everybody understands what a storm does.

It moves through an area and changes everything around it.

Some people can be like that.

Everywhere they go there’s another argument.

Another crisis.

Another emergency.

Another person they’re fighting with.

Another story where somehow everybody else is the problem.

After a while you become exhausted just being near it.

The storm may belong to them.

That doesn’t mean you have to keep standing in the rain.

Then the pre chorus returns.

Know what you’re facing
Know when to leave

The words haven’t changed.

But we’ve travelled since the first time we heard them.

At first we were looking at the person carrying gasoline.

Then the confrontation.

Then the drunk.

Now we’ve moved through a lover and a friend.

Knowing when to leave becomes harder when the person matters to you.

That’s why the same words carry more weight now.

Not every threat has a weapon
Some just make it hard to breathe

This changes the pre chorus.

Earlier it said:

U don’t have to prove yourself
Just because you can bleed

That belonged to physical confrontation and pride.

Now the song says not every threat has a weapon.

We’re widening the meaning of danger.

A person doesn’t need to be holding something in their hand before you start paying attention to what their behaviour is doing to you.

And then comes:

Some just make it hard to breathe

That line takes us directly toward where the song is going next.

Breathing appeared in the chorus.

Now it appears again.

But soon the person causing the pressure is going to disappear completely.

The chorus repeats here.

Its meaning hasn’t changed enough that I need to walk through every line again.

The danger has simply become broader.

When we first heard FLEE, we could imagine somebody getting away from a physical confrontation.

Now the command can also belong to relationships, control, constant conflict and the human storm that never lets you rest.

Then Verse 3 changes the entire landscape.

But danger isn’t always another man’s face
Sometimes it’s pressure U need to escape

This is one of the most important turns in FLEE.

The dangerous person disappears.

There doesn’t have to be anybody standing in front of you anymore.

There doesn’t have to be a drunk.

There doesn’t have to be a lover.

There doesn’t have to be a friend.

Sometimes the thing you’re trying to get away from is pressure itself.

I wanted this in the song because I’ve known that feeling too.

There are times when nothing dramatic is happening.

Nobody is attacking you.

Nobody is threatening you.

You simply reach a point where you’ve had enough coming at you.

You need space.

That’s a completely different use of the word FLEE.

And I think it’s an important one because not every reason for leaving has to be catastrophic.

Sometimes you’re simply overloaded.

Four walls closing and your chest gets tight
Too many voices too much fucking noise

The walls aren’t literally moving.

That’s the feeling.

Everything seems closer.

Every voice becomes another thing coming at you.

Somebody asks another question.

Somebody needs something.

Something else needs to be dealt with.

Another sound.

Another problem.

Another demand.

At some point you don’t need another conversation.

You need quiet.

I’ve had times in my life where that’s exactly what I wanted.

Just stop.

Give me a minute.

Let me hear myself think.

That isn’t hatred toward the people around you.

It isn’t necessarily anger either.

Sometimes you’re full.

That’s it.

There’s no more room for another thing at that moment.

Maybe you need a road with nobody there
A locked bedroom door and a little clean air

Look how far we’ve travelled from the opening.

We started with gasoline.

Now we’re looking for air.

We started with somebody looking for a reason to scream.

Now we’re looking for somewhere nobody is talking.

We started in confrontation.

Now we’re looking for solitude.

The road with nobody there is freedom for a moment.

No conversation.

No argument.

No expectation.

Just movement and space.

The locked bedroom door is different but it does the same thing.

It creates a boundary.

For a little while, the outside stays outside.

And then there is clean air.

That matters because breathing has been following us through this song.

Choking on smoke.

Lungs begging to breathe.

Somebody making it hard to breathe.

A tight chest.

Now finally, clean air.

The song is starting to move toward relief.

Maybe five damn minutes where nobody speaks
Is all that it takes to get back on your feet

I like that it’s only five minutes.

FLEE sounds like a huge word.

It sounds permanent.

It sounds like somebody disappearing.

Then the song says maybe you only need five damn minutes.

That’s human.

Sometimes we make everything bigger than it needs to be.

Maybe you don’t need to quit.

Maybe you don’t need to end the relationship.

Maybe you don’t need to make some enormous life decision.

Maybe you need everybody to leave you alone for five minutes.

Let the temperature come down.

Let your thoughts settle.

Let yourself breathe.

Then see what the problem looks like.

That’s very different from avoiding life.

You’re not necessarily running from the problem.

You’re giving yourself enough room to come back to it properly.

You don’t need permission
You don’t need a reason

Those lines are simple because I wanted them simple.

There are times when people feel they have to justify needing space.

Why are you going outside?

Why are you quiet?

What’s wrong?

Where are you going?

Sometimes the answer is nothing dramatic.

I just need a minute.

That should be enough.

You don’t owe everybody
Every minute you’re breathing

This is where the song touches boundaries without turning into a lecture about boundaries.

Your time belongs to you too.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have responsibilities.

It doesn’t mean we ignore people who depend on us.

It doesn’t mean we disappear whenever somebody needs something.

It means there has to be some room in your life where you still belong to yourself.

If you’re giving everybody every minute you’re breathing, eventually there may not be much left of you in the room.

Then FLEE changes gears again.

The language becomes harder.

GET OUT
Before anger decides for U

This isn’t the five quiet minutes anymore.

Now something is escalating.

GET OUT is an order because sometimes you don’t need another debate inside your own head.

You already know.

Anger is taking over.

I’ve had anger in my life.

I know how convincing it can be.

When you’re angry, the thing you’re about to say can feel completely necessary.

The thing you’re about to do can feel justified.

You’re certain.

Then twenty minutes later you may see it differently.

The problem is that some things don’t disappear twenty minutes later.

That’s why I wrote:

Before anger decides for U

I don’t want anger making decisions that I have to live with after the anger is gone.

GET OUT
Before one bad moment becomes something U can’t undo

This takes us back to Verse 2.

One stupid second can destroy two lives.

The song has been warning about this from the beginning.

Now we’re standing directly in front of that second.

This is the moment before.

The last opportunity to change direction.

Maybe nothing terrible has happened yet.

That’s exactly why leaving now matters.

If something has already happened, we’re dealing with consequences.

Before it happens, we still have choices.

STEP BACK
Before the pressure takes control

Sometimes one step is enough to interrupt momentum.

That’s why I didn’t write run here.

Step back.

Create some distance.

Physically.

Emotionally.

Whatever the moment requires.

Pressure likes momentum.

Arguments build.

Voices rise.

People move closer.

Words become harder.

One thing feeds the next.

Stepping back interrupts that movement.

It gives you another second to think.

Sometimes another second is exactly what you need.

WALK AWAY
Before somebody else decides the price of your soul

This is bigger than winning or losing an argument.

It’s about what another person’s behaviour can pull out of you.

If somebody can provoke me until I become somebody I don’t want to be, then I’ve given that person too much power.

If somebody else’s anger determines my actions, I’m no longer completely making my own decisions.

That’s the price I’m talking about.

Not something supernatural.

Something personal.

Who am I after this moment?

What did I allow somebody else to turn me into?

What do I have to carry afterward?

Sometimes walking away isn’t really about getting away from the other person.

It’s about protecting the part of yourself you don’t want them to change.

Then the song finally reaches the bridge.

And when you’re finally alone
Let the silence do its work

This is where everything slows down.

We made it out.

No gasoline.

No match.

No drunk.

No jealous lover.

No human storm.

No voices.

No pressure telling us what to do next.

Just silence.

And for once, silence doesn’t need anything from us.

SECTION ONE

LYRIC JOURNEY

PART 3

Let your heartbeat find its rhythm
Let the pressure lose its grip

This is where the body finally gets a chance to catch up.

Earlier the lungs were begging to breathe.

The chest was tight.

The walls felt like they were closing.

Everything was noise pressure confrontation and movement.

Now the heartbeat gets to settle.

I like the words lose its grip because pressure can feel like something holding onto you.

Even after you leave the room the argument or the situation your body doesn’t necessarily calm down immediately.

You can still feel it.

Your mind is still running through what happened.

Maybe you’re thinking about what you should have said.

Maybe you’re still angry.

Maybe you’re shaking.

Maybe you’re simply exhausted.

That’s why the silence has work to do.

You don’t have to solve anything in this moment.

Let things settle.

One breath
Then another

That’s all.

One breath.

Then another.

Earlier breathing was almost a warning system running through the song.

Choking on smoke.

Lungs begging to breathe.

Somebody making it hard to breathe.

A tight chest.

Looking for clean air.

Now we’re finally breathing without fighting for it.

The song doesn’t need a complicated explanation here because the simplicity is the point.

Sometimes after chaos the smallest ordinary thing feels completely different.

Breathing.

Silence.

Being alone.

Nothing happening.

No shouting
No fight

At the beginning of FLEE somebody was looking for a reason to scream.

Now nobody is shouting.

The drunk wanted you to swing.

Now there is no fight.

That’s the distance we’ve travelled.

And I think there’s something important in the fact that the victory isn’t somebody lying on the floor.

Nobody got beaten.

Nobody got the last word.

Nobody proved they were tougher.

Nothing happened.

That’s the victory.

We don’t always think about the things that didn’t happen.

The punch that wasn’t thrown.

The argument that didn’t go one step further.

The words that almost came out but didn’t.

The person who walked away before everything changed.

Nobody sees those moments afterward because there is nothing to see.

Maybe that’s exactly what makes them successful.

Sometimes U have to leave the darkness
Just to remember what feels like light

I wanted this line here after the silence because now there is enough distance to look backward.

Darkness can mean different things depending on where somebody finds themselves in this song.

It can be the dangerous person.

It can be the confrontation.

It can be a relationship.

It can be somebody else’s chaos.

It can be pressure.

It can even be your own anger.

I don’t need to choose one meaning because the song has already travelled through all of them.

The important word for me is leave.

Sometimes you don’t realize how dark something has become while you’re still standing inside it.

Human beings can adjust to a lot.

Something happens once and it bothers you.

Then it happens again.

Eventually it starts feeling normal because you’ve been around it so long.

Distance can change that.

You step outside and suddenly you remember what quiet feels like.

You remember what normal feels like.

You remember what it feels like when you’re not waiting for the next problem.

That’s the light.

It doesn’t have to mean everything is perfect.

It can simply mean you can see again.

Then the final chorus comes in.

This time FLEE has travelled a long way before we hear that command again.

FLEE
From the fist
From the knife
From the mouth full of spite

Now the song gathers the dangers together.

The fist is physical.

The knife is physical.

Then suddenly we’re back to the mouth.

That’s deliberate.

I don’t want the song pretending those things are identical.

They aren’t.

A weapon presents a completely different kind of immediate danger from somebody saying something hateful.

But both belong to the larger journey because FLEE has never been only about one kind of situation.

The mouth full of spite takes us all the way back to:

Some use their fists some poison the room.

We’ve come around to the opening idea again.

People can hurt in different ways.

What matters is recognizing what you’re actually facing.

FLEE
From the rage
From the trap
From the point of no coming back

Rage can belong to somebody else.

It can also belong to you.

By this point in the song we’ve seen both possibilities.

The trap is whatever keeps you participating when some part of you already knows you should leave.

Pride can be a trap.

Love can become a trap if we’re using yesterday to excuse everything happening today.

Loyalty can become a trap when a friend keeps pulling us into the same mess.

Anger can become a trap because once you’re inside it everything feels justified.

Then comes the line I think the entire song has been trying to prevent.

The point of no coming back.

There are moments after which the conversation changes completely.

Once somebody is seriously hurt you don’t get to return to the argument as it existed thirty seconds earlier.

Once certain words are said they can’t be unheard.

Once some decisions are made you can’t simply rewind the room and try again.

That’s why so much of FLEE happens before.

Before anger decides.

Before the bad moment.

Before pressure takes control.

Before somebody else determines what you do next.

The song isn’t waiting for disaster and then asking what happened.

It’s trying to catch the moment while there is still another ending available.

FLEE
From the pressure in your head
From the words you might regret

Now the danger turns inward again.

This is important because I don’t want to spend the entire song pointing at everybody else.

The dangerous person.

The drunk.

The jealous lover.

The friend.

At some point I have to look at myself too.

What am I about to say?

What am I about to do?

Am I becoming part of the problem?

The words you might regret haven’t been spoken yet.

That’s why there is still time.

There are words I’ve said in my life that I probably would have been better off keeping to myself.

I think most people have.

You get angry and suddenly your mouth wants to make sure the other person hurts too.

Then the argument ends.

The words don’t necessarily end with it.

Sometimes walking away for five minutes protects you from your own mouth.

That’s another kind of FLEE.

From the room that steals your air
U don’t have to fucking stay there

This brings us back to Verse 3.

Four walls closing.

The tight chest.

Too many voices.

Too much noise.

The road with nobody there.

The locked bedroom door.

Clean air.

The final chorus gathers all of that into one direct statement.

You don’t have to fucking stay there.

That doesn’t mean abandon every uncomfortable situation.

I’ve said that throughout this journey because it matters.

Some uncomfortable situations need to be faced.

Some conversations need to happen.

Some problems follow you if you keep running from them.

But there are also moments where staying isn’t solving anything.

Sometimes staying is making it worse.

Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is change the environment before you try to change the problem.

FLEE
Not because you’re fucking weak

There it is.

The accusation underneath the entire song.

Weak.

That’s one of the reasons people stay in stupid confrontations.

Nobody wants to look weak.

Especially when somebody is deliberately challenging you.

They know exactly what they’re doing.

What are you going to do?

You scared?

You’re just going to walk away?

Those words can control people.

They’ve probably controlled more decisions than we’d like to admit.

But if somebody can make me do something stupid simply by calling me weak then who actually has control?

That’s the question I wanted underneath this line.

Walking away may look weak to the person who wanted the confrontation.

They can think whatever they want.

I still have to live my life after they’re gone.

FLEE
Because U know what peace can mean

That’s where the answer finally appears.

Not fear.

Peace.

That’s where FLEE has been going from the beginning even though the song didn’t sound peaceful at all.

The opening was gasoline.

The ending is peace.

Everything between those two points is the journey.

Knowing what peace means doesn’t mean you’re afraid of conflict.

Sometimes you understand the value of peace precisely because you’ve had enough conflict.

You’ve seen what chaos costs.

You’ve lived through bullshit.

You’ve been around people who bring trouble with them.

You’ve experienced relationships that taught you things.

You’ve felt pressure.

You’ve had your own anger.

After enough of that peace stops sounding boring.

It starts sounding valuable.

There are battles worth fighting
There are battles for fools

This is where I make sure the song doesn’t become something I don’t believe.

There are battles worth fighting.

Absolutely.

There are times when walking away would mean abandoning something important.

There are times when you have to speak.

There are times when you have to stand.

There are things in life worth defending.

But there are battles for fools too.

The difficult part is that the fool usually doesn’t know it’s a foolish battle while he’s standing in it.

That’s why experience matters.

That’s why judgment matters.

That’s why knowing yourself matters.

Ask what this is really about.

Ask what can actually be gained.

Ask what can be lost.

Ask whether you’re still here because something matters or because your pride won’t let you leave.

Those questions can completely change the meaning of standing your ground.

Sometimes getting out alive
Is the strongest fucking move

We heard this line earlier.

Now it carries the entire song behind it.

At the first chorus getting out alive sounded mainly like escaping immediate danger.

Now we’ve travelled through more than that.

Getting out can mean escaping the confrontation.

It can mean leaving somebody else’s chaos.

It can mean recognizing something in a relationship.

It can mean getting away from pressure for five minutes.

It can mean stopping yourself before anger makes a decision.

And yes when genuine physical danger exists it can mean exactly what the words say.

Get out alive.

There is no shame in that.

You don’t owe somebody a demonstration of toughness at the expense of your future.

Then everything strips down for the outro.

Know when to fight

I put fight first because FLEE isn’t denying that part of life.

Sometimes you fight.

That doesn’t automatically mean physically.

You fight for people.

You fight for ideas.

You fight for your future.

You fight through difficult periods.

You fight for something you believe is worth saving.

Know when to speak

Silence isn’t always the answer either.

There are moments when something needs to be said.

A boundary may need to be spoken.

The truth may need to be spoken.

Somebody may need to hear no.

Walking away from every difficult conversation isn’t wisdom.

Sometimes speaking is the thing that changes what happens next.

Know when to stand

There are times when you don’t move.

You stand behind what you believe.

You stand beside somebody who needs you.

You stand up for yourself.

You stand because leaving would go against something important inside you.

And know when to

Everything stops before the last word.

Because this is the fourth choice.

Not the only choice.

Not the answer to everything.

The choice that belongs when the other three no longer make sense.

FLEE

That’s where I wanted the song to end.

One word.

The same word we’ve been travelling toward from the first line.

At the beginning FLEE sounded like running away from danger.

By the end I think it means something bigger.

Know yourself well enough to recognize what the moment requires.

Know what deserves your strength.

Know what deserves your voice.

Know what deserves you standing your ground.

And know what deserves absolutely nothing more from you.

Sometimes courage stands.

Sometimes courage speaks.

Sometimes courage fights.

And sometimes courage turns around and walks away.

That’s FLEE.

SECTION TWO

THE STORY

WHEN ONE WORD STARTED GETTING BIGGER

FLEE started as a song about dangerous people.

That was the doorway.

I was thinking about the kind of person who can turn an ordinary situation into trouble simply because of the attitude they bring with them. The drunk who wants somebody to challenge him. The person with a temper who keeps pushing until somebody pushes back. The person who doesn’t necessarily need to throw a punch because their mouth is already doing enough damage.

I’ve known different versions of that throughout my life.

So when the opening came together, it felt natural:

“Some people walk in carrying gasoline
Looking for a match and a reason to scream”

I wasn’t really writing about gasoline.

I was writing about people who arrive carrying their own fuel.

All they need is a match.

Sometimes they’ll even try to put the match in your hand.

That’s when FLEE started becoming something more interesting to me.

Because what happens if you refuse to light it?

THE INVITATION

One of the lines that really gets to the heart of this song is:

“That little invitation to step inside”

I’ve seen that invitation in different forms.

Sometimes it’s somebody getting louder.

Sometimes it’s an insult.

Sometimes it’s a look.

Sometimes somebody keeps pushing because they want a reaction.

And sometimes we give it to them.

That’s the trap.

Once you’re angry too, you’re no longer standing outside their behaviour. You’re participating in it.

I’ve had enough conflict and bullshit in my own life to understand how quickly that can happen.

I’m not writing this as somebody who has always calmly walked away from everything. That wouldn’t be true.

I’ve had my own anger.

I’ve made my own decisions.

I’ve stayed in situations longer than I should have.

I’ve allowed things to get under my skin.

Experience is what makes me look at it differently now.

When you’ve lived long enough, you start realizing how many terrible outcomes begin with something unbelievably small.

A look.

A sentence.

A drink too many.

An insult.

Pride.

Five seconds where nobody wants to be the first person to back down.

Then everybody gets to live with what happened during those five seconds.

THE DRUNK AT THE BAR

“There’s the drunk at the bar who wants you to swing”

That line isn’t there because I’m imagining some movie scene.

I’ve dealt with drunks.

I’ve seen how alcohol can become part of a situation where judgment changes and somebody who might normally walk away decides tonight they’re going to prove something.

The important part of that lyric isn’t actually “drunk.”

It’s:

“wants you to swing”

He needs somebody else to participate.

If I don’t swing, his plan changes.

That doesn’t mean every dangerous situation can be solved by simply walking away. Life isn’t that neat.

But plenty of stupid confrontations survive because two people keep feeding them.

Sometimes one person refusing to continue is enough to change the ending.

That’s something worth thinking about.

THE PEOPLE WHO NEVER TOUCH YOU

Then there’s another line:

“Some never touch you but still bring the doom”

That opens a completely different door.

Not everybody who damages your life does it physically.

Some people exhaust you.

Some manipulate.

Some create arguments everywhere they go.

Some know exactly what buttons to push.

Some make you feel as though every conversation is another test.

Some bring an atmosphere with them.

You can feel yourself changing when they’re around.

That’s why I wanted the song to say:

“Not every threat has a weapon
Some just make it hard to breathe”

A weapon is easy to recognize.

Other kinds of harmful behaviour can take much longer to understand.

THE RELATIONSHIP I HAD BEFORE

Part of FLEE connects to a relationship I had before the woman in my life now.

I’m making that distinction because I don’t want somebody reading this years from now and assuming I’m talking about the wrong person.

That previous relationship taught me things.

Some of those lessons were probably obvious from the outside.

They’re rarely as obvious when you’re the one living them.

Relationships carry history.

You remember the good parts.

You remember why you got together.

You tell yourself things can improve.

You give another chance.

Then maybe another.

That’s one reason leaving a relationship can be completely different from walking away from some idiot looking for trouble at a bar.

With the idiot, you may have nothing invested.

With somebody you’ve loved, you’ve invested part of your life.

That’s harder.

I’m not interested in using FLEE to put somebody from my past on trial.

The song isn’t revenge.

I’m interested in what I learned from going through it.

There comes a point where you have to stop listening only to promises and start looking at patterns.

There comes a point where staying because of what something used to be can prevent you from seeing what it has become.

Sometimes leaving isn’t hatred.

Sometimes it’s acceptance.

THE FRIEND WHO KEEPS PULLING YOU BACK IN

“The friend who keeps pulling U into their mess”

I wanted that person in the song too because danger doesn’t always come from somebody you dislike.

That’s another complication.

You can care about somebody and still recognize that their behaviour keeps putting you somewhere you don’t belong.

Maybe they’re constantly fighting.

Maybe they’re always creating drama.

Maybe every problem somehow becomes your problem.

Friendship doesn’t mean surrendering your judgment.

There are times when helping somebody is the right thing to do.

There are also times when repeatedly following somebody into the same mess isn’t helping either one of you.

That’s another form of knowing when to step back.

WHEN FLEE CHANGED DIRECTION

If the song had stopped there, it still would have worked.

It would have been a hard song about dangerous personalities, confrontation and walking away.

But that wasn’t enough.

Because the more I thought about the word FLEE, the more I realized I had used that instinct in completely different situations.

Sometimes there wasn’t a dangerous person.

There wasn’t a fight.

There wasn’t even an argument.

I just needed out.

That’s where Verse 3 changed the meaning of the entire song.

“But danger isn’t always another man’s face
Sometimes it’s pressure U need to escape”

Now we’re somewhere else.

“Four walls closing and your chest gets tight
Too many voices too much fucking noise”

I know what it means to want some fucking quiet.

Sometimes you need to get away from everything coming at you.

Not forever.

Maybe not even for an hour.

Maybe five minutes.

That’s why I like this part:

“Maybe five damn minutes where nobody speaks
Is all that it takes to get back on your feet”

Five minutes isn’t abandoning your life.

It’s five minutes.

Go for a drive.

Sit somewhere alone.

Close the bedroom door.

Get outside.

Find some air.

Let everything stop coming at you for a moment.

Then come back when you’re ready.

That kind of fleeing isn’t really about escape.

It’s about resetting yourself before pressure starts making decisions for you.

BEFORE ANGER DECIDES FOR U

That line may be the centre of the whole song for me.

“GET OUT
Before anger decides for U”

Anger has made decisions for plenty of people.

I’ve had anger in my own life.

I’m not going to sit here pretending otherwise.

The strange thing about anger is how convincing it can feel in the moment.

You can be absolutely certain that you need to say something.

You need to answer.

You need to prove something.

Then time passes.

Now you have to live with whatever you did while that feeling was in charge.

That’s why the breakdown keeps using action words.

GET OUT

STEP BACK

WALK AWAY

They’re simple because sometimes simple is exactly what you need.

Don’t solve your entire life right now.

Just interrupt the moment.

THE POINT OF NO COMING BACK

“One stupid second can destroy two lives”

That’s deliberately uncomfortable.

There are decisions that can’t simply be taken back because everybody calmed down afterward.

That’s why FLEE gets aggressive without glorifying aggression.

The aggression is aimed at stopping the escalation.

Get the hell out before something happens.

Step back before pressure controls you.

Walk away before somebody else’s behaviour changes the direction of your life.

There’s an irony in that.

The song sounds like it wants a fight.

The message is trying to prevent one.

I like that contradiction.

It gives the song teeth without making violence the victory.

THE SILENCE AFTERWARD

Then we finally arrive at the part I think the song needs most.

“And when you’re finally alone
Let the silence do its work”

After everything that came before it, silence becomes almost physical.

No drunk.

No argument.

No person trying to provoke you.

No voices piling on top of one another.

No need to answer.

Just your heartbeat settling.

One breath.

Then another.

That is why relief had to be part of FLEE.

If the entire song stayed angry, it would miss the reason for leaving.

You aren’t only moving away from something.

You’re trying to get somewhere better.

Sometimes that place is safety.

Sometimes it’s peace.

Sometimes it’s clarity.

Sometimes it’s nothing more complicated than a quiet room where nobody is bothering you.

THE STRONGEST FUCKING MOVE

The chorus says:

“Sometimes getting out alive
Is the strongest fucking move”

I deliberately like the word “sometimes.”

There are battles worth fighting.

The song eventually says exactly that.

I don’t believe people should spend their lives running from everything difficult.

There are moments when you stand.

There are moments when you speak.

There are moments when you fight for what matters.

But there are also battles for fools.

Part of getting older is hopefully becoming a little better at knowing which one is standing in front of you.

That’s what FLEE became for me.

It started with dangerous people.

Then it moved through drunks, confrontation, relationships, friends, pressure, anger and the need to be alone.

By the end, I realized the song wasn’t really about running.

It was about control.

Who controls my next move?

The drunk?

The angry person?

The person trying to provoke me?

The relationship?

The pressure?

My pride?

My anger?

Or me?

If I’m still the one making that decision, I still have choices.

Sometimes I fight.

Sometimes I speak.

Sometimes I stand.

And sometimes I FLEE.

SECTION THREE

THE LYRIC JOURNEY

The first journey through FLEE happens with the music.

This is the second one.

Now we can slow everything down and walk beside the lyrics from the first image to the last word because this song changes more than it may appear to on the first listen.

It begins with danger outside of us.

Then it moves into provocation.

Then consequences.

Then relationships.

Then pressure.

Then anger.

Then something completely different happens.

The song begins looking for peace.

That movement is what holds FLEE together.

SOME PEOPLE WALK IN CARRYING GASOLINE

“Some people walk in carrying gasoline
Looking for a match and a reason to scream”

That’s where the song opens.

Nobody has actually done anything yet.

There hasn’t been a punch.

There isn’t a weapon.

There hasn’t even necessarily been an argument.

What has entered the room is potential.

The gasoline isn’t literal.

It’s the attitude somebody brings with them.

We’ve probably all met people who seem to arrive already prepared for conflict. They aren’t responding to trouble. They’re almost waiting for an excuse to create it.

All they need is the match.

The next two lines explain that danger can take different forms.

“Some use their fists some poison the room
Some never touch you but still bring the doom”

The fist is easy to understand.

“Poison the room” is different.

A person can change an entire atmosphere without touching anybody.

Maybe it’s intimidation.

Maybe it’s hostility.

Maybe it’s constant negativity.

Maybe it’s the feeling that everyone has to watch what they say because one person might explode.

That’s why the opening doesn’t define danger too narrowly.

FLEE needs room for more than violence.

THE LOOK

“U can see it coming in the look in their eyes
That little invitation to step inside”

Now we’re at the moment I recognize from life.

Sometimes you can feel a confrontation coming.

The look changes.

The voice changes.

Something is being offered to you.

I called it an invitation because that’s exactly what provocation needs.

Participation.

Somebody can insult me.

They can challenge me.

They can try to embarrass me.

But there is still a moment where I decide whether I’m stepping into what they’re creating.

That leads directly into:

“But every battle doesn’t need your name
Sometimes walking away wins the fucking game”

That’s the first major turn in the song.

I’m not saying never stand up for yourself.

I’m asking whether this particular battle deserves you.

There is a difference.

KNOW WHAT YOU’RE FACING

“Know what you’re facing
Know when to leave”

The first line has to come before the second.

Know what you’re facing.

Understand the situation.

Then decide.

FLEE isn’t meant to become a rule that says run whenever life becomes uncomfortable.

Sometimes the right decision is to stay.

Sometimes it’s to speak.

Sometimes it’s to confront something that needs confronting.

But sometimes you already know where this is heading.

“U don’t have to prove yourself
Just because you can bleed”

That line goes after pride.

Being capable of taking a punch doesn’t create an obligation to take one.

Being capable of fighting doesn’t mean every fight deserves you.

Then the chorus arrives.

FLEE

The word stands alone because by this point the decision has been made.

“FLEE
When the danger gets too close”

Now the potential from the opening has moved closer.

“FLEE
When you’re choking on the smoke”

The opening gave us gasoline.

Now we have smoke.

Something has progressed.

The song is using that first image again without needing to explain it.

Then:

“FLEE
You don’t have to stand and fight
Just to prove that U were right”

That’s difficult because being right can become its own trap.

You can know you’re right and still make a terrible decision trying to prove it to somebody who doesn’t care.

Sometimes being right isn’t the most important thing happening anymore.

WHEN YOUR MIND SAYS LEAVE

“FLEE
When your lungs are begging breathe
FLEE
When your mind says fucking leave”

Now the warning isn’t only coming from the person in front of you.

It’s coming from inside.

Something in you is saying enough.

“Run from the fire
Run from the fool”

The fire is whatever the situation has become.

The fool can be the person creating it.

But there’s another possibility hiding there.

If I know something is stupid and still let pride pull me into it, I can become the fool too.

Then comes the line everything in the chorus has been building toward.

“Sometimes getting out alive
Is the strongest fucking move”

Again, sometimes.

That word keeps the song honest.

There are times when standing is necessary.

There are also times when survival is the victory.

DANGEROUS MOUTHS

Verse 2 starts looking more closely at the different people who can create these situations.

“There are dangerous mouths with innocent hands
Dangerous smiles with dangerous plans”

I like the contradiction in “dangerous mouths with innocent hands.”

The hands haven’t done anything.

The mouth has.

Words can provoke.

Threaten.

Manipulate.

Humiliate.

Escalate.

Then the smile complicates things again.

Danger doesn’t always arrive looking dangerous.

“A temper can turn in a fraction of time
One stupid second can destroy two lives”

Now FLEE introduces consequences.

A fraction of time can create years of consequences.

That’s why the moment before matters so much throughout this song.

THE DRUNK

“There’s the drunk at the bar who wants you to swing”

I’ve dealt with drunks.

But this isn’t saying every person who drinks becomes dangerous.

The lyric is specific.

This drunk wants confrontation.

And again, he needs participation.

He wants you to swing.

That’s the invitation from Verse 1 appearing in another form.

THE JEALOUS LOVER

“The jealous lover turning love into strings”

Now the danger changes again.

We’re no longer talking about a stranger at a bar.

We’re inside something personal.

Strings can pull.

Strings can hold.

Strings can control.

Love and control aren’t the same thing.

That lyric connects with things I’ve learned through relationships, including a previous relationship in my own life.

I’m not using the lyric to accuse one particular person of every behaviour in the song.

The song is larger than that.

What my own experiences give me is an understanding of how complicated leaving becomes when feelings and history are involved.

THE FRIEND

“The friend who keeps pulling U into their mess”

This is another important change.

Now the person isn’t an enemy or lover.

It’s a friend.

Somebody can matter to you and still repeatedly pull you toward situations that aren’t good for you.

“The kind of human storm that never lets U rest”

I like “human storm” because a storm affects everything around it.

You don’t necessarily control the storm.

You can decide whether you keep standing in it.

NOT EVERY THREAT HAS A WEAPON

The second pre-chorus changes from the first.

“Know what you’re facing
Know when to leave
Not every threat has a weapon
Some just make it hard to breathe”

That last line is the bridge into the next part of the song.

Until now, most of the pressure has been connected to people.

Now breathing itself becomes part of the story.

After the repeated chorus, Verse 3 changes direction.

BUT DANGER ISN’T ALWAYS ANOTHER MAN’S FACE

“But danger isn’t always another man’s face
Sometimes it’s pressure U need to escape”

This is where FLEE becomes the song I wanted it to be.

If I had stayed with fights and dangerous people, the song would have had one meaning.

This verse gives it another.

“Four walls closing and your chest gets tight
Too many voices too much fucking noise”

Nothing says the walls are literally moving.

That’s what pressure can feel like.

Everything is too close.

Everything is coming at you.

You don’t necessarily want to fight anybody.

You want space.

A ROAD WITH NOBODY THERE

“Maybe you need a road with nobody there
A locked bedroom door and a little clean air”

Look at how different these images are from the beginning.

Gasoline.

Fists.

Dangerous mouths.

Drunks.

Now:

A road.

A bedroom.

Air.

We’re moving toward relief.

“Maybe five damn minutes where nobody speaks
Is all that it takes to get back on your feet”

I deliberately like the smallness of that.

Not five years.

Not disappearing forever.

Five minutes.

Sometimes that is all you’re asking for.

Just stop.

Let me breathe.

Let me think.

Let me hear nothing for a minute.

YOU DON’T NEED PERMISSION

“You don’t need permission
You don’t need a reason
You don’t owe everybody
Every minute you’re breathing”

This is where FLEE becomes about boundaries too.

People can become so accustomed to being available that asking for a little space starts feeling selfish.

It doesn’t have to be.

Taking a moment doesn’t mean you stopped caring about everybody else.

Sometimes it means you’re trying to come back as yourself instead of whatever the pressure was turning you into.

GET OUT

Then the breakdown hits.

“GET OUT
Before anger decides for U”

The language becomes a command again.

The song isn’t discussing anymore.

Get out.

Why?

Because there is still time.

Anger hasn’t made the decision yet.

“GET OUT
Before one bad moment becomes something U can’t undo”

Now the consequence from Verse 2 returns.

“One stupid second can destroy two lives.”

These lines belong together.

The entire song keeps returning to the moment before.

Before the punch.

Before the words.

Before the irreversible decision.

STEP BACK

“STEP BACK
Before the pressure takes control”

A step backward can look like retreat.

Here it represents control.

You’re interrupting momentum.

Then comes the biggest version of the warning.

“WALK AWAY
Before somebody else decides the price of your soul”

I don’t mean somebody literally owns your soul.

I’m talking about allowing another person’s behaviour to determine what kind of person you become in that moment.

If somebody provokes me into doing something that goes against my own judgment, they have influenced far more than the argument.

That’s a price I may be paying long after they’ve disappeared.

LET THE SILENCE DO ITS WORK

“And when you’re finally alone
Let the silence do its work”

This is where FLEE exhales.

Everything before this has been pushing.

Now nothing is pushing.

“Let your heartbeat find its rhythm
Let the pressure lose its grip”

Earlier the lungs were begging to breathe.

The chest was tight.

The walls were closing.

Now the body is settling.

“One breath
Then another
No shouting
No fight”

Those may be some of the least aggressive lines in the song.

That’s exactly why they matter.

After all that noise, nothing happening becomes the victory.

THE DARKNESS AND THE LIGHT

“Sometimes U have to leave the darkness
Just to remember what feels like light”

The darkness can mean different things depending on what brought you here.

It could be the confrontation.

The relationship.

The pressure.

The atmosphere.

Your own anger.

The lyric doesn’t need to choose only one.

The important part is distance.

Sometimes you can’t properly see what something is doing to you until you step outside it.

Then the final chorus arrives with everything the song has learned.

FROM THE FIST

“FLEE
From the fist
From the knife
From the mouth full of spite”

Physical danger and verbal hostility are finally placed side by side.

“FLEE
From the rage
From the trap
From the point of no coming back”

The point of no coming back is what the entire song has been trying to avoid.

Then it turns inward again.

“FLEE
From the pressure in your head
From the words you might regret
From the room that steals your air
U don’t have to fucking stay there”

Notice that one of the dangers now comes from your own mouth.

“The words you might regret.”

FLEE isn’t only about protecting yourself from other people.

Sometimes you’re stepping away because you don’t like what the situation is bringing out of you.

NOT BECAUSE YOU’RE WEAK

“FLEE
Not because you’re fucking weak”

That’s the accusation the song has been arguing with from the beginning.

Walking away means you’re scared.

Walking away means you lost.

Walking away means the other person won.

Maybe.

Or maybe:

“FLEE
Because U know what peace can mean”

That’s the answer.

Peace has become valuable enough that you don’t need to accept every invitation to chaos.

BATTLES WORTH FIGHTING

“There are battles worth fighting
There are battles for fools”

That is the balance I wanted.

If FLEE said every battle should be avoided, I wouldn’t believe my own song.

Some things deserve a stand.

Some things deserve a voice.

Some things deserve courage.

But not everything deserves access to your anger.

“Sometimes getting out alive
Is the strongest fucking move”

We arrive back at the central line, but it feels different now.

At the beginning, getting out alive sounded mainly physical.

After everything we’ve travelled through, “alive” can carry more.

Safe.

Still yourself.

Still in control.

Still able to breathe.

Still able to decide what happens tomorrow.

KNOW WHEN

The outro doesn’t end by telling you only to flee.

It says:

“Know when to fight
Know when to speak
Know when to stand”

All three remain valid.

Then comes the final decision.

“And know when to

FLEE”

That’s the whole song in five words.

Know when.

That’s what life keeps teaching.

Not always fight.

Not always leave.

Not always speak.

Not always stay.

Know when.

And when the answer is FLEE, don’t confuse leaving with weakness.

SECTION FOUR

REFLECTION

WHAT STAYS WITH ME AFTER FLEE

When I get to the end of this song, the word that stays with me isn’t actually danger.

It’s choice.

That’s what FLEE became.

There is a moment in so many situations where we still have a choice.

Before the argument gets worse.

Before somebody throws the punch.

Before we say the thing we can’t take back.

Before somebody else’s anger becomes ours.

Before pressure gets so heavy that we stop thinking clearly.

Sometimes that window is wide open.

Sometimes it’s only a few seconds.

But if we recognize it, we still have a choice.

I’ve lived enough situations where I can look backward and see those moments much more clearly than I could while I was standing inside them.

That’s one of the strange things about life.

Afterward, everybody becomes an expert.

You know exactly what you should have said.

You know when you should have left.

You know what warning sign you should have noticed.

You know which argument wasn’t worth having.

The hard part is recognizing it while it’s happening.

THERE ARE BATTLES WORTH FIGHTING

I don’t want anybody leaving this song thinking my answer to life is to run.

It isn’t.

I’ve spent too much of my life standing my ground to suddenly pretend otherwise.

There are things worth fighting for.

There are people worth defending.

There are principles worth standing behind.

There are difficult conversations that have to happen.

Sometimes walking away from every uncomfortable situation becomes its own problem because nothing ever gets resolved.

That’s why the outro matters so much to me.

“Know when to fight
Know when to speak
Know when to stand”

I believe all three.

But then comes the fourth choice.

Know when to FLEE.

Wisdom isn’t choosing the same response every time.

It’s knowing which response belongs to this moment.

THE BATTLE FOR FOOLS

“There are battles worth fighting
There are battles for fools”

I keep coming back to that.

I’ve seen how something stupid can become something serious because nobody wants to be the first person to stop.

Two people can be arguing about something that won’t matter tomorrow while making decisions that could matter for years.

That’s insanity when you really think about it.

Pride is powerful.

Nobody wants to look scared.

Nobody wants somebody else thinking they backed down.

But eventually I had to ask myself a different question.

Why should somebody else’s opinion of my toughness determine what I do with my life?

If somebody can make me lose control just by insulting me, they’re controlling more of me than I want to give them.

Walking away can sometimes be the moment you take that control back.

WHEN THE PERSON MATTERS TO YOU

Relationships make all of this harder.

It’s easy to tell somebody to leave when you don’t share their history.

When you’ve loved somebody, built memories with them and invested part of your life in them, decisions don’t happen as neatly as people on the outside sometimes think they should.

I learned things from a previous relationship.

Some lessons took time.

That’s part of my life and therefore part of what I bring into this song.

But I don’t want FLEE to become a place where I blame somebody else for everything.

That’s too easy.

The more useful question for me is:

What did I learn?

I learned that patterns matter.

I learned that sometimes we keep hoping for the person or relationship we remember instead of dealing with what is actually standing in front of us.

I learned that leaving something doesn’t erase whatever was good about it.

It simply means you’ve reached a point where you have to make a decision about what comes next.

That can hurt and still be necessary.

FIVE DAMN MINUTES

One of my favourite parts of FLEE isn’t violent at all.

“Maybe five damn minutes where nobody speaks”

I think almost everybody understands that feeling.

You don’t hate anybody.

You’re not abandoning anybody.

You don’t want to disappear.

You just want everyone to shut the fuck up for five minutes.

There is something wonderfully human about that.

Sometimes the smartest thing you can do when you’re overloaded is stop adding more.

Don’t answer the next question yet.

Don’t continue the argument.

Don’t make the decision while you’re boiling.

Get some air.

Take the drive.

Close the door.

Sit quietly.

Then come back.

Five minutes can change the temperature of a moment.

THE PERSON I DON’T WANT MAKING MY DECISIONS

“Before anger decides for U”

That line keeps coming back to me because anger can feel so intelligent when you’re angry.

It gives you arguments.

It gives you courage.

It tells you exactly what somebody deserves.

Then anger leaves.

You’re the one who stays behind with whatever happened.

I’ve had anger in my life.

I’ve had confrontations.

I’ve had bullshit.

I’m not writing about this from some peaceful mountain pretending I’ve never wanted to tell somebody exactly where to go.

That’s why the line means something to me.

I’m not afraid of feeling anger.

I just don’t want anger holding the steering wheel.

THE QUIETEST VICTORY

We usually recognize victories because something happens.

Somebody wins.

Somebody scores.

Somebody gets the last word.

FLEE made me think about victories where nothing happens.

The punch that never gets thrown.

The argument that doesn’t become a fight.

The message you decide not to send.

The person you stop answering.

The door you close.

The five minutes you take before continuing the conversation.

Nobody applauds those moments.

Most people never even know they happened.

But some of them may change the direction of a life.

That’s a strange kind of victory.

Maybe one of the most important kinds.

WHAT PEACE CAN MEAN

By the final chorus, FLEE isn’t really running toward fear anymore.

It’s running toward peace.

“Because U know what peace can mean”

Peace doesn’t mean weakness to me.

It doesn’t mean allowing people to walk all over you.

It doesn’t mean being afraid to speak.

Sometimes peace requires a strong boundary.

Sometimes it requires saying no.

Sometimes it requires standing firmly.

Sometimes it requires ending something.

Sometimes it requires leaving the room before you become part of the problem.

And sometimes peace is nothing more complicated than finally hearing silence.

WHAT I HOPE YOU TAKE FROM THIS SONG

I can’t tell somebody else when to stay and when to leave.

Every situation is different.

What I can do is put the question in front of you.

Is this battle worth what it could cost?

Is this person pulling you somewhere you actually want to go?

Are you responding because it’s the right thing to do or because pride won’t let you stop?

Are you making the decision or is anger making it?

Do you need to solve everything right now or do you simply need five minutes to breathe?

And maybe the hardest question:

Do you already know you should leave but you’re waiting for another reason?

Only you know what those questions mean in your own life.

That’s where I want FLEE to leave you.

Not with an order.

With awareness.

THANK YOU FOR WALKING THROUGH THIS ONE WITH ME

If you came here because you heard a loud song telling you to FLEE, I hope you leave understanding that there was something quieter underneath it.

I’ve lived enough of this subject to know it isn’t simple.

I’ve dealt with drunks.

I’ve dealt with difficult and dangerous personalities.

I’ve lived through relationships that taught me lessons.

I’ve experienced confrontation.

I’ve experienced pressure.

I’ve needed the quiet too.

All of those roads somehow found their way into one word.

FLEE.

Maybe that’s why the word became bigger the longer I worked with it.

At first it sounded like running away.

By the end it sounded like knowing yourself.

There will always be battles.

Some deserve us.

Some don’t.

Knowing the difference may save us a lot more than pride ever will.

MOITA
WHERE EVERY SONG TELLS A STORY
EVERY STORY TEACHES SOMETHING

SECTION FIVE

MOITA DOCUMENTARY & LEARNING CENTRE

THE WORLD BEHIND FLEE

The main story is finished.

But FLEE opens doors into subjects much larger than the song itself.

Why does the body sometimes tell us to get away before we’ve consciously decided what to do?

Why can a stupid confrontation become serious so quickly?

Why can leaving a harmful relationship be much more complicated than people on the outside imagine?

Why does getting away from noise and pressure sometimes feel like finally being able to breathe?

And maybe most importantly, how do we learn the difference between avoiding something we should face and removing ourselves from something that is doing us harm?

Those questions take us into stress, human behaviour, relationships, conflict, personal boundaries and safety.

THE HUMAN ALARM SYSTEM

There’s a reason FLEE keeps returning to breathing, heartbeat, pressure and the need to get away.

The human body has its own alarm system.

When we perceive something as threatening or dangerous, the body can activate what is commonly called the fight-or-flight response. Stress hormones prepare us to react. Breathing can become quicker, muscles can tense and the heart can beat faster. CAMH describes stress as a normal response to situational pressures or demands, particularly when those demands are perceived as threatening or dangerous. 

That doesn’t mean every uncomfortable feeling tells us we’re genuinely in danger.

That’s an important distinction.

A crowded room can feel overwhelming without being dangerous.

An argument can make the heart race without becoming violent.

A difficult conversation can be uncomfortable and still need to happen.

The body’s alarm tells us something is happening.

We still have to understand what that something is.

That’s why the song doesn’t simply say flee.

It says:

“Know what you’re facing
Know when to leave”

Those may be the more important instructions.

FIGHT OR FLIGHT ISN’T A COURAGE CONTEST

We often put moral labels on human reactions.

Fight sounds brave.

Flight sounds frightened.

Real life isn’t that simple.

The fight-or-flight response is a protective reaction, not a measurement of somebody’s courage. CAMH explains that when danger is perceived, the nervous system prepares the body to confront the threat or escape toward safety. 

That gives the title FLEE another meaning.

Leaving isn’t automatically cowardice.

Fighting isn’t automatically courage.

The intelligent response depends on what you’re facing.

There may be moments where speaking up matters.

There may be moments where a problem needs to be confronted.

There may be moments where getting some distance is the better choice.

And when there is genuine danger, personal safety becomes more important than winning an argument.

WHEN PRESSURE BECOMES PHYSICAL

“Four walls closing and your chest gets tight
Too many voices too much fucking noise”

Those lyrics move away from the violent side of FLEE and into pressure.

Stress doesn’t exist only inside our thoughts.

CAMH notes that stress can produce cognitive, emotional, physical and behavioural effects. These can include difficulty concentrating, irritability, feeling unable to relax, muscle tension, fatigue and a rapid heart rate. It also notes that noisy or unsafe environments, relationships and major life changes can become sources of stress. 

That’s interesting when placed beside the song.

Sometimes the body is reacting before we’ve even found the words to explain what we’re feeling.

But there’s another important lesson here.

Feeling stressed doesn’t automatically mean somebody has a disorder.

Stress is part of ordinary human life. CAMH specifically describes a certain amount of stress as normal and notes that problems become more concerning when stress is overwhelming, prolonged or begins interfering with everyday functioning. 

I think that distinction belongs here because I don’t want FLEE diagnosing anybody.

It’s a song.

It describes human experiences.

The Learning Centre helps us understand the larger subjects surrounding them.

THE FIVE-MINUTE ESCAPE

“Maybe five damn minutes where nobody speaks
Is all that it takes to get back on your feet”

There’s a huge difference between escaping every responsibility in your life and recognizing that you need a moment.

Taking some space can interrupt the momentum of an argument.

A quiet environment can give you room to think.

A walk or some time alone can change the temperature of a moment.

Alberta Health Services includes relaxation, supportive relationships, resolving conflicts and spending some time alone among a wider range of approaches people may use to manage stress. 

The key is balance.

Five minutes alone doesn’t solve a destructive relationship.

It doesn’t solve chronic stress.

It doesn’t make genuine danger disappear.

And it shouldn’t become an excuse to permanently avoid every conversation we dislike.

Sometimes the quiet is simply where we regain enough control to decide what needs to happen next.

ANGER AND THE FEW SECONDS THAT MATTER

“GET OUT
Before anger decides for U”

Anger itself isn’t automatically the enemy.

Human beings get angry.

Sometimes for very good reasons.

The danger comes when the feeling takes control of the behaviour.

That’s where creating distance can matter.

The purpose isn’t to pretend the anger isn’t there.

It’s to prevent a temporary emotion from making a permanent decision.

The song follows immediately with:

“Before one bad moment becomes something U can’t undo”

That’s why FLEE keeps returning to the moment before.

Before escalation.

Before retaliation.

Before words become threats.

Before somebody decides that pride is more important than consequences.

There is enormous power in interrupting momentum.

Not every confrontation allows that opportunity.

But when it does, taking it can change what happens next.

NOT EVERY THREAT HAS A WEAPON

This is one of the subjects where the documentary needs to go further than the song.

Violence isn’t limited to somebody hitting another person.

The Government of Canada describes family violence as behaviour within a family or close relationship that can be violent, threatening, neglectful or controlling and that makes another person feel unsafe or afraid. It can include physical, sexual, psychological, emotional and economic forms of abuse as well as controlling behaviours. 

That matters when we look at:

“Not every threat has a weapon
Some just make it hard to breathe”

Controlling behaviour can include things such as isolating somebody from friends or family, controlling access to money, monitoring where somebody goes or repeatedly threatening or intimidating them. 

At the same time, we should be careful with language.

Not every disagreement is abuse.

Not every bad relationship is abusive.

Not every jealous moment defines an entire person.

Patterns, behaviour, control, fear and safety matter.

The purpose here isn’t to give readers a label to throw at somebody.

It’s to help people understand that harm can exist without a visible injury.

WHY DOESN’T SOMEBODY JUST LEAVE?

This is one of those questions that sounds simple until you understand the situation.

Why stay?

Why go back?

Why give another chance?

Why not just flee?

The Government of Canada acknowledges that recognizing abuse within your own relationship can be difficult. A person may still love their partner, may believe the behaviour isn’t serious or may hope things will improve. Government guidance also warns that leaving an abusive relationship can be challenging and even dangerous. 

That matters.

FLEE can shout one word in a chorus.

Real life can require much more.

Money may be involved.

Children may be involved.

Housing may be involved.

Fear may be involved.

Years of history may be involved.

A person may need help and a plan rather than somebody standing outside the situation saying:

Why don’t you just leave?

Sometimes the more useful question is:

What would help this person become safer?

WHEN FLEE REQUIRES A PLAN

When genuine abuse or danger is involved, leaving isn’t something a song should pretend to teach.

Professional safety planning exists for a reason.

Government of Canada guidance recommends developing an individualized plan that can include identifying trusted people and services, deciding where to go, considering how to leave quickly if necessary and gathering important documents or essential items. 

That gives the title FLEE one of its most serious meanings.

Sometimes the safest departure is not spontaneous.

Sometimes it is planned.

Sometimes somebody needs support.

Sometimes circumstances change and the plan needs to change with them.

That’s where music should know its limits.

A song can make somebody think.

Qualified services can help somebody work through the realities of their particular situation.

THE DRUNK AT THE BAR

“There’s the drunk at the bar who wants you to swing”

There’s a reason I wrote the line as one particular drunk looking for a fight rather than turning alcohol itself into the villain.

People drink without becoming violent.

The lyric isn’t saying otherwise.

It’s describing a recognizable confrontation where impaired judgment, anger and pride may already be in the room together.

The lesson isn’t how to beat the drunk.

The lesson is asking why you would accept his invitation in the first place.

If somebody wants a fight, refusing to provide one can sometimes end the entire story before it begins.

There is nothing glamorous about turning a meaningless argument into consequences that follow people home.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPACE AND AVOIDANCE

FLEE also raises a quieter question.

When is walking away healthy and when are we simply avoiding something?

There isn’t one answer.

If I take five minutes because I’m angry and want to return to a conversation with a clearer head, that is different from refusing to ever have the conversation.

If I leave genuine danger, that’s different again.

If I repeatedly run from every uncomfortable responsibility, that’s another situation entirely.

The word is the same.

The circumstances aren’t.

That’s why judgment became such an important part of this song.

FLEE isn’t supposed to replace judgment.

It’s supposed to make us use it.

PEACE CAN REQUIRE STRENGTH

“Because U know what peace can mean”

Peace is sometimes misunderstood as passivity.

I don’t see it that way.

A boundary can create peace.

A difficult conversation can eventually create peace.

Walking away can create peace.

Asking for help can create peace.

Saying no can create peace.

Taking five minutes alone can create peace.

And sometimes standing your ground calmly instead of escalating can create peace.

The important part is that peace doesn’t require surrendering control of yourself.

Quite the opposite.

Sometimes maintaining control is the hardest part.

THE QUESTION FLEE LEAVES BEHIND

Maybe the documentary surrounding FLEE comes down to one question.

Who is making my next decision?

Me?

The person provoking me?

My pride?

My anger?

My fear?

The pressure around me?

Or am I giving myself enough room to understand what I’m facing before I act?

There won’t always be time for a perfect answer.

Life doesn’t work that way.

But becoming aware of the question may change some of the answers.

That’s something worth carrying beyond the song.

CONTINUE EXPLORING

For readers who want to understand the subjects surrounding FLEE more deeply, these are good places to continue.

CAMH — Stress⁠ explains the human stress response, common signs of stress, possible sources of pressure and ways people can seek support.

Government of Canada — Recognizing Family Violence⁠ explains different forms of family violence, controlling behaviours, warning signs and routes toward informed support.

Government of Canada — Safety Planning⁠ provides practical information about developing a safety plan when someone is experiencing abuse or may need to leave an unsafe relationship.

There are many other directions a reader could take from here.

Conflict resolution.

Personal boundaries.

Stress management.

Healthy relationships.

Emotional regulation.

The psychology of anger.

Communication.

The difference between assertiveness and aggression.

The effect of alcohol on judgment and behaviour.

And perhaps the simplest subject of all:

Learning when something deserves another minute of your life.

FLEE began with danger.

It ends with something much more valuable.

Choice.

MOITA