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This song has been what’s getting me through life right now. I am not exaggerating. I’ve listened to it at least four hundred and twenty times, give or take. I’ve had a repeated spiritual experience listening to it repetitively. I was glowing. I’m shimmering now.
I was there when John opened for Glen Phillips in San Francisco. I was there when Matt Mangano was playing guitar in your first tour with a band. I saw you three times that tour, and brought friends.
I was playing chess one day with my friend Jason McKaughan, and he says, “I wanna show you something.” It was a song called Comfortable. I was floored.
He also showed me “The Matrix” and “Deconstructing Harry” and Michael Hedges. Jason shared a lot of beautiful stuff with me. He visited you and Matt while you were living in Georgia. So did another friend of mine, Aaron Estes.
I love stories. I love telling them. I love hearing them. You’ve written a beautiful story for yourself.
This song took on a new meaning for me. The Chorus in particular. The Monad. The Golden Ratio. Epiphanies galore. New friends. Synchronicities. Incessant reading. Constant writing. I’ve been very busy.
We’ve hung out on a few occasions, but this was a long time ago. I’m gonna be 46 this year on April 21st.
I was reminded of this story where Sting was talking with someone about writing “Every Breath You Take.” He was approached by a young couple who emphatically told him that they married each other to that song—which was a far cry from the intention and plot in which it was originally devised. He however, said thank you to the young couple, and thought more about this verbal engagement between him and them. The conclusion he came to was that they were right; just because he wrote song with a particular meaning, doesn’t mean that it has to have the same intrinsic value and meaning to someone else.
That is what I’m trying to say about this song. It means something to me in a way that I’m not sure it means to you: the person who wrote it, with David LaBruyere dancing around a studio, holding a microphone. I hope to know one day.
It feels like magic to me. So, thank you. Deeply. Truly. I was the guy who wrote you when you were living in Georgia with Matt. I said I was a friend of Matt's in the email, and asked what the guitar part was for the pre-chorus of "No Such Thing".
Wow, that was a long time ago.
You said to me, "Any friend of Matt's is a friend of mine". Truthfully, Matt and I went to high school together but he was a senior when I was freshman. I watched him play "Cult of Personality" with Jason McKaughan by In Living Color. They sounded tits. However, when I was talking to Matt and Jason about it, they were emphatic of me burning the footage of my recollection. I love both of those guys. Very funny people.
Humor is incredible.
My favorite song of yours is this one starting roughly one week ago: just by a nose. My second favorite is “You’re Gonna Live Forever in Me” and “Belief” followed swiftly by most whatever else you make in that Easy-Bake-Oven Brain of yours. I admire it. I hope we get to chat again one day. I’d like that.
In the meanwhile, be safe and good and well. The later of which, by my own silly approximations: you are deep and full of life giving water that managed to flow to sea level from high mountain top, through thick and thin, forever amen. 🙏🏻
