TRIGGER WARNING:
Trigger warning: The following talks about suicide and mental health crises. Please use discernment as you read, and take care of yourself.
If you, or someone you know, are having thoughts of self-harm or suicide, please reach out to someone you trust and feel safe with. If you do not have that option, you can call the 24/7 National Suicide Hotline (988) for help. You are not as alone as it feels.
https://988lifeline.org/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=onebox
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UPDATE 6/18/25:
On 6/18/25, the trump administration announced an end to the 988 LGBTQIA+ hotline. The 988 main line will still be available for all that are in need, but the specific LGBTQIA+ line will no longer be available. This was announced on the same day the the SCOTUS ruled in favor of a TN State law banning Trans Kids from treatment.
This is a hard blow for a community already reeling from an number of setbacks since the trump administration took over.
Please reach out if you are having a hard time. I know it's easy to say on my end, but you are not alone. The National Suicide Hotline (988) can still be a resource for support.
A QUICK NOTE about a related and active issue in the U.S.: Per a leaked budget plan, the Trump administration wants to shut down funding for the specialized service of the national suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ+ teens. In the “skinny budget” released by the administration leaves the issues unclear and does not clarify intentions. With Trump's well documented track record of being dishonest, it seems fair to take anything he (or his administration) says with a grain of salt.
What is also well documented is that the LGBTQ+ community is at high risk for suicide. The suicide hotline is a strong support for people struggling with suicidal ideations and to take away that support is cruel, at best.
The Trump administration would say the cut is to save “taxpayers money”. However, Trump and his followers have not been shy about their issues with the LGBTQ+ community, so for me, this feels like a direct and deliberate move to cause further harm and has little to do with saving money.
As of this writing, congress has approved the budget and it is headed to the senate. The administration has therefore this action is only a part of the suggested national budget. If you feel this is a dangerous and harmful idea, I would ask that you call your representatives to ask them not to support this action.
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INCEPTION:
“Riding Shotgun without a Driver” is about one of my oldest friends, Ashley, and his completion of suicide. Aside from catharsis of self-expression, writing the song was a practice in figuring out who I was writing ABOUT, and who I was writing FOR. This song is ABOUT Ashley. This song is FOR those of us he left behind.
I tried to make this as honest a song as I could. It’s incredibly personal to me, and I’m aware that lyrically, it may not make sense to everyone. The best way I can describe where it came from is to tell you about the events that led to it. So, here we go…
The Event…
Ashley was one of my oldest friends. I don’t recall a time when I didn’t know him. As happens with long friendships, we went through periods of being very close and then periods of rare and inconsistent contact, and then back again.
At the time of his passing, I had not spoken to Ashley in over a year (aside from a stray text here and there). I had been working in mental health for over 10 years. I had experienced losing clients to suicide, and I had experienced losing acquaintances to suicide. However, I had not experienced losing someone so closely tethered to my life in that way.
The day Ashley completed suicide is a vivid memory for me in some ways, and in other ways, it’s a dark, gray blur. I was working full-time at Mobile Crisis, and going to grad-school for a Master’s degree in Social Work. My job was answering calls from people experiencing suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts, or experiencing a mental health crisis that made them a danger to themselves or the community. I worked the overnight shift, which meant that I slept during the day and got up as most people were starting to settle in for the night. One of the 1st things I learned about working the night shift was that you had to turn off your phone to sleep uninterrupted during the day.
That evening, my alarm went off and I turned my phone on to find a number of missed calls. I remember a few calls from my sister, and several from multiple other people. My immediate thoughts were…”that can’t be good”, and “something has happened to my dad”. I called my sister 1st, and she told me that Ashley had completed suicide. I remember my reaction, and frankly, I critique it to this day. My response to my sister was “Holy shit” and I remember it came out in an almost mocking tone…I still don’t understand that. I only know that we (as people) have “ideas” of how we will respond to certain things, and then when the moment comes, we do something drastically different. Oh, how unaware we all are.
I was able to make a few calls to old friends that I wanted to be sure knew what happened. I spoke to a couple, but I do not remember the conversations very well.
I went to work that night. Yes, you read that correctly…I found out someone I had known all my life completed suicide hours earlier, and then I went to my job working on a suicide prevention team. I remember having moments that I thought it might be wise to call out of work, but then I would realize that I would be sitting up all night while Liz slept and that just seemed too lonely.
I know I took calls through the night, I don’t remember any content from them. At some point in the middle of the night a coworker looked at me and asked if I was alright. I told them what happened, and they were so caring and gracious and empathetic. My whole team worked extra through the night to keep me from having to handle as many calls. I do not remember driving back home.
The funeral was set a few days later, and Liz and I drove to Alabama. I had many emotions throughout the funeral. Some obvious, and some not. I felt sadness, rage, nostalgia, disgust, pity, and a good handful of others. A focal point for me during the funeral was the way Ashley’s suicide was talked about…in short, it wasn’t. His death was called “an accident”, and that’s as close as I recall anything coming to addressing it. I suppose we can call it an accident, but to me, that was like saying his life was a big accident, and his suicide was the closing of said accident.
I left the funeral angry and unsettled. I can appreciate not going into the details of what happened during the funeral, but a lot of my frustration was that the funeral was just an extension of how the community I was raised in treated people.
The Aftermath
As we do these days…I posted about it on social media after the funeral, and was asked to take it down a few different times. I refused out of spite, spite for not being allowed to have my thoughts/feelings and to express them; out of anger towards the community that did not want to acknowledge what Ashley had done; and out of respect for Ashley and the pain he was in. I can understand why people feel it may be disrespectful of Ashley to talk about his suicide, and why it might be taken as “justifying” his actions. That is the way the system worked and operated, so it’s understandable that people would follow what they “know”. However, by not acknowledging his actions, I believe we are not acknowledging the pain he experienced through his life. We are not acknowledging the strength it took to carry on through the years. We can acknowledge these things, and still hold him accountable for the pain he caused. We are capable of holding contradictory things.
It took me a good number of months to wrap my head around all the different feelings I had. I had some people tell me I “shouldn’t” be angry, and that I “should” feel this way or that. This was a major spark for writing the song. My hope was to illustrate the complex emotions I was feeling in a way that was not trying to justify them, but rather show them in an honest light.
The Processing
Looking back on it all, one of the things that I struggled with most was feeling so many different emotions, followed by contradictory emotional reactions to them. For instance, there were times that I would feel relieved. Relieved that my friend wasn’t in pain anymore, but that would make me feel guilt and shame. I would feel anger towards Ashley, and that would lead to deep sadness and empathy that my friend was in so much pain, and that would lead to shame that I was not there to help him.
I suppose I have to admit I still have a bit of anger around all of this. Anger with Ashley and what he did…Anger towards his life and the things that happened to him that led to such an end…Anger with myself for not staying connected and not knowing my friend was hurting so much…Anger with religion and culture for weaponizing shame and fear, instead of cultivating empathy and acceptance.
For the 1st year or so after Ashley’s death, I had dreams of him multiple times a week. To this day, I still have frequent dreams with Ashley in them. They are always pleasant and they always feel old to me. Often, I am not lucid enough to realize that Ashley is gone, but every now and again, I do. I’ll say to him that he is gone and this is not real, and then the dream evaporates. The sadness that comes after is the acceptance that this is the closest I’ll get to my old friend until my time comes to give up the ghost.
I’ve spent most of my professional career in the mental health field (or a “mental health adjacent” field), and I am still constantly learning and re-learning how little we know about ourselves and about the people around us.
My hope is that others who have lost people to suicide will connect with the song and this writing. With that in mind, a fear I had in writing this song was that it might cause shame for someone struggling with suicidal thoughts. That is something that I still fear greatly, and it’s the last thing I would want to come out of my work. So, if you are reading this and having (or have had thoughts of harming yourself), please know that I do not write all of this to cause more pain or guilt. I only mean to help and to share my feelings.
This was my experience, and it was hard, and it is hard. It is not meant to invalidate what anyone else is dealing with or has experienced.
MUSIC:
The music for this song was one of the 1st pieces of music I ever wrote on a ukulele. It was simple, and I knew I liked it, but for a long time, I could never put melody and words to it. Something just told me to commit it to memory, and wait for the inspiration to come.
When the lyrical premise came to me and I started putting together the message, this piece of music quickly became my focus. The message and emotion of the lyrics was so complex that I wanted the music to feel organic and easy to listen to. With the music being simple, I also wanted it to be dynamic. I wanted it to have soft and intimate moments, and then have energy and movement to go with the changing emotional dynamics.
I thank my producer, Corey Horn, for playing bass and cajon on the recording to give it the movement and energy it needed.
Lyrics
Hey you, I remember laughing,
Too long ago, but I won’t forget,
Counting my scars, testing my mettle,
Anger takes control…
Driving faster…
Pain comes, and it can linger,
Time stops, and the feeling doesn’t fade,
A thousand years of strain lean on a finger,
Shame takes control…
Driving Faster…
Hey you, what made you go and do that?
You knew there’d be no turning back,
You walked away from consequences,
And we watched you take control…
Your Driving Faster…And we’ll hold on.
INFLUENCES
Pearl Jam (band)
Johnny Cash (artist)
The Flaming Lips (artist)
Arcade Fire (artist)
The Headlights (band)
Radiohead (band)
PLAYLIST
This playlist is a bit unique compared to others I've put together. Instead of only being songs that inspired my writing of this one, I made this playlist with songs that remind me of my friend.
It’s worth pointing out that Ashley and I often had dramatically different music tastes. Many of my fond memories of Ashley include riding around and listening to music. He had a few songs that were “non-negotiable listening” when driving around. Most of them I liked just fine, but there’s one song…one song that I despise, to this day. It’s also a song that brings about a flood of nostalgic memories of Ashley, memories that make me smile and therefore, I can’t claim to “hate” the song. The song in question??? “The Weight” by The Band.
Here is the link to the Spotify playlist again. I hope you enjoy it and I hope that this is helpful.
Spotify Playlist for "Riding Shotgun without a Driver"
