This song is loaded with meaning. I started writing this song when I was living with my band, Satori. I was 21. It was 1995. My girlfriend's brother, who became my good friend had to be hospitalized in a mental hospital. It was the first of many such hospitalizations for him. Brian was a fiercely brilliant and independent thinker. He and Andrew Lee had produced my first recording with my band Satori. We spent a week in their house/studio, and we had a lot of fun working on that album.
It was about a year later when Brian was hospitalized. That's when I got the chorus in my head. The song didn't go anywhere. It wasn't until after I had gone back to college, spent a year in Brooklyn, only to return home. While I was finishing up Who are the Navigators, I wrote the next two verses and the bridge. The Louisville Navigators began to play the song. I later recorded a version for Lost and Found, but I wasn't happy with it. I don't know what was missing.
It wasn't until Lost and Found was recorded that I wrote the third verse. I wasn't sure if it needed it or not. Sometimes I play it, sometimes I don't. I recorded this version with Phelim and Andrew at Graham Hawthorne's studio. We continued to tinker with this song, and we played it a variety of different ways.
When I listen to this song, I find it hard to believe that I wrote it twenty years ago. It is unfortunately, still very current. Maybe it's gotten more relevant over the years. It's the last lines that I repeat to myself over and over in life: It's so simple it's hard. The answers to our problems aren't complicated, they don't require a PhD in human understanding. They're just hard to do, because they require courage.
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