Familiar stranger

How come the man that I love is this familiar stranger now?

This man that I live with, that I sleep with, is a familiar stranger now

Even he looks at me, I can tell he’s faraway, he is this familiar stranger now

He says he is with me but he’s not the man I know.

He’s a familiar stranger now



This is the hook ‘Familiar stranger’, a song I wrote a couple of years ago. It is actually better sung than read like some songs.

I wrote the song when I witnessed a classic love story go so so wrong because the guy simply…..changed.

The young woman was heartbroken. They had been high school sweethearts and everybody believed they were made for each other. He went away to college. She stayed behind and worked as a makeup artist. He came back and they got back together. He was her angel. He respected, adored and loved her. They got married some years later, he got a job and life was sweet. They had two lovely boys. Life was beautiful. Then bam! He just….changed.

That was just what happened. She swore with tears running down her cheeks that he was not the man she married. Jude can’t be responsible for her black eye. He wouldn’t hurt a fly let alone the woman he loved. He wouldn’t yell and spank their sons for nothing. He had cried tears of joy when they were born. It just wasn’t Jude. Anne was sure of that.

Yes. People do change consciously and sometimes, without even knowing it. But it is indeed the hardest when it is the man you went to the altar with, adopted his name and had kids with that just stopped being who you knew and came to love. You decided to go to the altar with him, adopt his name and have kids with when you could just live your life on a roller coaster without being really responsible for a whole lot like a husband and kids. And he changed!? Not good!

Well, life throws a lot of sh… stuff at us. We don’t have any choice but to find the warrior and survivor in us to be able to scale through. So whatever it is darling, just do your best; your very best so you can be able to proudly say “I tried all I could” without having a fatal case of ‘the conscience thing’

And really guys, sometimes the best and only thing to do is to walk away.



Lily Johnson