the matthew show revisited: week eleven
This was the first track we busted into when we arrived for our two-hour session at Ardent in Memphis during the 2012 Folk Alliance Festival, and I guess we were a bit wound up, from the sound of it. When the album came out, we paid an on-air visit to our friends at KTCU's The Good Show (sadly no longer in existence), and I was a bit surprised to see how everyone was taken aback by the intro. We seemed to have accessed some frequency we hadn't up till that point, and it remains a lot of people's favorite tune of mine. Which is funny, because when I'd played it acoustically for several years prior, and had put out a slightly less intense studio version as a single, no one really paid it much mind. I suppose a song about a failing relationship needs some power behind it to drive the point home.
The album marked the beginning of a few years' run of doing records in proper studios with live bands. I learned a lot in that environment about capturing energy and letting imperfections be, and it translated to my work with other outfits in those years.
Interestingly, it kicked off a rash of fellow performers in Second Life covering the song for a few months. I'm not often covered, so it was a curiosity to hear my brainchild coming out of the instruments and mouths of friends. I still hold out a certain amount of hope that someone with a bit of name recognition might give it a go at some point, as it's probably the most mainstream tune I'll ever write.