It was Passover and I was celebrating at my uncle’s house. I was talking to an old family friend, who I’m going to call Ben in this song. Ben was a lovely man, but unfortunately he was in the early stages of dementia, which made for unusual conversation.
We had been talking for a few minutes when suddenly it occurred to me that he was standing next to a lit candle & the back of his shirt had caught on fire.
My aunt noticed what had happened and started shouting. Suddenly there was a flurry of movement around us & my brain couldn’t process it. My whole body froze up.
Somebody grabbed a glass of water and put the fire out while Ben and I stood there, anxiously glitching until the excitement finally died down. Then, without warning, Ben started singing “Girl on Fire” by Alicia Keys.
credits
from Total Sincerity Forever,
released October 10, 2020
Written by Evan Greenwald, Tyler English, Sam Forester, Jake Kopulsky, & Kabir Kumar