Track Dissection aims to capture the essence of an artist’s song: the effort behind it, the context surrounding it, and the emotions etched within it. In each piece, the artist pulls back the curtain of their work, revealing its intimacies.
This song started because my favorite guitar had recently broken, so I picked up a cheap guitar at the music store near my house. I happened to find an instrument that had some serious song juice in it, and the chords started from just sitting with that guitar after I restrung it and was getting familiar with it. It’s the same guitar you hear on the recording. It’s an old Japanese Yamaha Classical Guitar made in the ’60s.
The lyrics came from this experience or feeling I was and have been having in the very beginning stages of regaining awakeness. That period of time where dream and reality is really blurry and feelings from your sleep world start to mix with your real physical experience of your body. I recently moved into a new home with my partner and this kind of intense merging of worlds seemed to be happening in a really potent way in our new home. I like the idea of trying to capture just one single moment in a song. Oftentimes it feels daunting when I feel like I have to really express the spectrum of my feelings and experiences with songs, so it feels good to remember that if I can manage to just capture one moment, I kind of have the whole universe right there in each moment anyways.
There was an earlier version of the lyrics that were about something entirely different that I won’t share just because they felt vulnerable and sad in a way that didn’t feel like a true expression. They were written during a moment of unkind self-judgement. Sometimes with music, I write something in the heat of a feeling, but then it’s an opportunity to step back and check in with myself. I like to ask myself things like, “Is this how I truly feel, or is this a reaction?” Not that those reactions are necessarily unreal, but songs for me are often a way of processing, and so I like to use them as opportunities to reflect and get closer to my realest self.
Lyric Annotation
sometimes when I wake up in the morning
before the quiet core has slipped away
I think I was trying to define an experience here of the sleeping part of us that we can connect with in our waking moments sort of only at this one brief opportunity. We just have a moment to connect with this subconscious version of ourselves before it slips back into hiding for the day
the light in my eyes and bones in my arms start to fade
the idea of my physical experience fading back into my awareness
and I wonder if I’m not dreamin’
’til I feel your leg pressed to mine
and although I’m scared really I’m just happy to be alive
This was kind of meant to be about the shock of reality that comes with waking up. You regain consciousness and suddenly the reality of the world and ourselves rushes back into you. The fear of being a person and knowing you will die and that the world is a scary place all kinda hits you at once. All of this is real and true but also there’s that deep gratitude for getting to live and for getting to experience that infinite kind of love that we all have the capacity for.
where I love you oh I love you
and I’m pretty sure that you love me too
This is about how I am in love and super am grateful I get to be a part of building that with my partner.
now I turn my face to the glowing
place that we all have inside
it’s something we all share and that’s why it’ll always be just mine
This part of the song is maybe the least literal or most poetically shrouded. It just feels true to me and I hope it feels that way to others. As we turn to face the day with go towards to both the glowing sun and our glowing selves and some part of that is both so unique to each of us and also so universal.
Check out the song (and its inspirations) here!
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