Engine of the Night (Part 12)

"Engine of the Night" was the last song that I wrote on this album. It definitely felt like I had ended a chapter.  Late in the Summer before I was destined to head back to Kenyon, I found myself surrendering to the future. I liked to walk into the woods behind my parents house at night, and just sit. It was there that I could sometimes feel a presence- it felt like the whole woods were one spirit at times, or maybe it was the night itself, breathing and pulsating through the woods.

The woods werer the closest thing that I had to a church at that time in my life. It was where I went to escape. Much as I enjoyed the company of other people, I also needed a place where I could feel absolutely safe from the eyes of others; a place where I could never be a fool.  The woods are where I went to transcend reality.

Once, when I was in high-school, Tim Wonderlin took a walk into the woods one night. It started to rain, but we didn't seem to mind. We both saw what looked like glowing rain falling down. It may have been a trick of the light somehow, but in that moment it looked like magic. It was magic. I'm sure I could explain the phenomenon in rational terms, but that's not how magic works. If you rely only on reason, all you're left with is a cold empty shell of reality; a play becomes people pretending on stage, a painting becomes nothing more than colors on a canvas. We often call it the suspension of disbelief, but that's a complicated way of saying, "our willingness to believe."

My friend Branden were out in the woods one night, and the light moved in a magical way.  We wondered if we saw a ghost.  It looked like a luminous figure dancing in the shadows.  We debated that night for years.  Of course, I don't doubt that a rational explanation existed, but we didn't need one.

Another time in high school, I remember walking into the woods with three women. We perched on a rock overlooking the valley. In the distance, we could see the lights of cars driving past. We stood there silent for a long time. Twenty minutes? It was a spontaneous silence, and nobody seemed to feel uncomfortable about it. It seemed perfectly natural, but it was also magical, because it had no explanation. How did it happen? Why then?

Instead of running from the madness, and running away from the stormy feelings, I would go to the woods to let them pass through.  When you fight the madness or a feeling, you are really holding on to the very thing that you are fighting. When I would sit down to write a song, I would always let whatever was in my mind pass through into words on the page. I didn't censor myself. When I wrote a song, I could channel wisdom. It doesn't seem like my wisdom, though.

I wrote this song, and I didn't think much of it.  It wasn't until many years later in Brooklyn, that I was recording every song that I wrote just to have a record that I encountered it again. I was impressed by how it simply said a truth that seemed to elude me at that time.

You might think that this song should close the album, but musical chronology is not linear. It's inside out. All I can say is that it makes more sense if you listen to it more than once. In fact, the more you listen to it, the more it makes sense.

Dewey Kincade: Guitars, piano, vocals
Morgan Brooks: Backing Vocals
Jeff Faith: Upright Bass
Steve Sizemore: Percussion