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My Dad died one snowy winter and as an “outlet”, I did a lot of snow shovelling. A spot for the car & paths beside the car. Then a nice swath for the dog. Even perimeter paths for the cats. Then the neighbours. Then, repeat until exhausted enough to sleep. And that, basically, was that winter.
This song came many years later. It was triggered by watching a live news report of a tragedy - the lone survivor, a young man, was approaching a huge gaggle of reporters eager to ask those horrible and ridiculous “the friends you loved are dead - how do you feel?” questions.
Instead, that survivor threw up his hands, shook off his supporters, then turned and walked away. I thought “good for you, buddy!” and started writing.
There is a well-known list of the seven stages of grief (Shock/Disbelief; Denial; Bargaining; Guilt; Anger; Depression; Acceptance; Hope) that I had been pondering for a while. That list became a writing guide for me once the song's lyrics got going. And I can't imagine how difficult an experience grief would be without Faith.
Every once in a while, over the years, I kept having a look at the song & tweaking the lyrics. SM Mitchell artfully brandished a searing-hot poker to the lyrics, pushing me to get them ever closer to true.
In 2016, I got a call to use a portion of this song at a local awards event. I was honoured and humbled. The song would play under photos as part of a tribute for a man in our local film community that had passed away. A friend and a mentor. I can’t really play this without tearing up so I couldn't perform the song live - a recording would have to be used instead. So, these tracks were done up at home, then mixed & mastered @ The (new) Bat Cave with William Crowdis, who wrote & played the current bass track.
Maybe the song is “done” now that it’s been recorded?
Now when I listen to it, I have memory flashes of the people in my life who have died and all the range of emotions come back. Folks say there is such a thing as "a good cry", but I dunno'.
The last thing to change for this recording was the line “talk my friend”. For many years, the last line of the Chorus was “we’ll talk like men”. This was my joke for me - a funny line for me because, of course, men don’t talk.
And because men don’t talk, the big reunion conversation I imagine in the song would actually only be 4 or 5 short sentences (vague lines like: “this is a nice river, eh?”) spread out over a few hours. Perfect.