Category: music

I met a girl one summer night in San Diego. We had spent the evening talking at a quiet coffee shop, and afterwards, we drove to the top of a scenic overlook and sat under a blanket on the roof of her car, with our legs dangling in the sunroof and the entire San Diego skyline in front of us.

The following day, I realized that, because we lived 1500 miles apart, I would probably never see her again. I let myself feel the pain of that, and I realized that there was something about the pain that felt good. I had spent so long not feeling much, that the pain of longing was somehow refreshing.

Sometimes feeling pain is better than feeling nothing at all. I think life is defined by a stream of moments of ups and downs, and if you fail to have any, then it’s almost as if you aren’t existing. Sometimes I feel like gravity is the only thing keeping me alive – and if it comes to standing still, or falling, then let me fall.

I never did see her again.

Here’s to a magical summer night in San Diego, and to spending the next day in an empty house next to an old, out of tune, upright piano – finally feeling alive.

Living life on the road can be difficult. You can be in a place for a week and meet some of the most incredible people, but when you come back in a year, everything changed and those relationships you cherished could be entirely different. I found myself getting used to this kind of transient style of relationship and could soon identify with the lyrics of classic rock songs talking about being a “rolling stone”.

This is a song about a girl that I let get too close. I knew that I wasn’t ready to settle down and that my lifestyle wouldn’t be able to give her what she deserved for years. She had managed to get close for a reason though – she was beautiful and charming.

This is a sad song, outlining how my own foolishness turned into cruelty.

“I’m a fool to have left you, but a foolish man the more to have stayed behind.”

This song was a raw and unedited expression of what it’s like to fall in love with someone and have it fall apart. I’m sentimental, so for me it was a feeling of “wandering through a ghost house”, where every memory hurts, and trapped me into the reality that she was gone.

This song is about a girl who got scared and ran when we started to get close. I knew she had her demons to deal with and that it was risky, but I had already fallen for her. As I often do, my mind and heart went to war and this song captures how I rationed it all out, but all of the pain that I felt as a consequence.

I’ve spent my life in the church. I’ve seen the good sides and the bad. I’ve seen the church heal and I’ve seen it wound. At the end of the day, I think that so many people listen to someone else’s take on God. They mold their entire view on Him, based off of a good or bad experience they had from church or a person they know who may or may not represent God.

Sometimes I think it’s a good idea to just hear a perspective that is in first-person. There’s something powerful about hearing love and acceptance, untainted by theology and perspective.

While there certainly isn’t anything wrong with insight from others, this song aims to confront the critic and soften the attacks that many may have felt, unjustified or otherwise from the church.