I wrote this on a ranch. I wrote this at the radio station, late late at night. It’s a song of love. It’s a song about feeling alone.
On the day I finished it, I also finished On Chisel Beach by Ian McEwan. This music wrapped itself around that story, and both were planted deep into my brain. Both the music and that story complain and ache and worry, they both drag it out when it doesn’t need to be that complicated. Both improve with age, with patience, with repetition.
On the day I finished it, I drew this picture:
I also fretted about composing too slowly:
Writing words on sheet music is easier than writing music. Maybe I just need to write music as often as I write words.
This song reminds me of sitting up until all hours of the night, on a couch that wasn’t my own, in a strange house, watching WWII documentaries and checking to see if we’d accidentally let the coyote eat the cat.
It reminds me of the last grasping days of college. I was spending most of my time grasping, grasping at what?… grasping at something.
It reminds me of emerging from a dark cavern to greet the morning sun. It reminds me of waiting, waiting, waiting to grow up.
Years and years and years after I finished the music, I played it for someone. She said, “You’re really starting to get good at this.” I pretended that the music was truly new.
