It was the day before [my daughter’s] Joey’s twelfth birthday, and I was lying on my back porch when I finally got the go-ahead to give the verses a shot. The album was set to master within a week! I slapped my head- phones on, shut my eyes, and blasted the track on loop. I knew my job was pretty pivotal on this joint. Beyond the time sensitivity, I had to be the glue to bring this thing home. There was zero room for error.
I decided to frame it in a narrative. This meant threading the most delicate of needles — to keep it aspirational, but not preachy or contrived. The words came flooding from head to hands instantaneously. In totality, the verses took a solid thirty minutes to write, tops. The first was a conversation with my late mother. The second was a dialogue with my soon-to-be twelve-year-old. I guess in my head, the sum of the parts was the passing of the generational torch. I hoped it would drip of that ’70s lyrical optimism that I loved as a kid. Most importantly, I could see Brendon absolutely exploding on a whole other level, if he did his thing on the track. It felt like fire.
An hour later, I drove over to Jake’s house on the Silver Lake Reservoir and sang it to those cats. Evan really responded to it, which was an awesome indicator. That night, Brendon dug further into the melody and totally elevated it. Shit was a wrap.