From the recording Everything Else Was Noise
Everything Else Was Noise
This song is the heart of the album and the reason the whole project carries its name.
“Everything Else Was Noise” is about realizing, maybe later than you wish you had, what truly mattered all along. Life can get loud. Work, worry, survival, responsibility, mistakes, pride, fear, and all the things a man carries can sometimes make it seem like his attention is somewhere else. But underneath all of that, there are people who were always the reason he kept going.
For me, this song is deeply tied to family, especially my sons. It carries the truth that on my last day, when all the noise of this life finally falls away, they will be what remains in my heart.
This is not a song about having done everything perfectly. It is a song about love that was always there, even when life made it hard to see clearly. In the end, everything else was noise.
— Lane Alan Dumser
Lyrics
I spent a lot of years chasin’
Things I thought would make me whole
A bigger check, a better title
A little more control
I drove some roads for money
I wore ambition like a crown
But the older that I get now
The more it all thins out
On my last day alive
I won’t count what I owned
Won’t be thinkin’ ’bout a ladder
Or a name carved on a stone
I’ll be thinkin’ about them
The ones who carry my voice
My children were the meanin'
Everything else was noise
I used to think that winnin'
Meant havin’ more to show
Life has got a way of teachin'
What matters when you go
It ain’t a car in the driveway
It ain’t the money in the bank
It’s the little hands that held you
And the prayers you learned to thank
The overtime and worry
All the pride I tried to keep
Fades like dust at sundown
When forever gets too deep
If I leave behind one message
Let it find them through the years
You were never second place
You were always why I’m here
On my last day alive
I won’t count what I owned
Won’t be thinkin’ ’bout the ladder
Or the things I called my own
I’ll be thinkin’ about them
Every laugh, every choice
My children were my treasure
Everything else was noise
Your children are the meanin'
Your heart’s truest voice
Your greatest achievement
Everything else was noise....