Half of the recording for my most recent disc was done on two separate trips I took to England last year. I would wake up in the morning, which was the middle of the night back home, and get online while I had some coffee. One of the first mornings, I saw a blog post from my friend Adam in NJ (posted insanely early!). I hadn’t noticed his blog before then, and I took a look. For the rest of that trip, and my next one, reading his posts every morning (along with checking Red Sox scores and talking to mom and dad) kept me connected to home (while I was in the deep, dark, remote jungles of Stoke-On-Trent in the U.K.). He writes poignant, honest observations on various things in his life, big and small, that come from the thoughts and experiences of one man but are almost always relatable to everyone.

I’ve been meaning to do a lot of things on this journal and on Facebook (and in the rest of my life!) that I haven’t yet. One is to mention his blog. I feel a little cheesy doing it today, because he mentions one of my songs in his post (which I’m honored to say he’s done a couple of other times too). But to be honest, I’m touched and kind of proud to do it today. As a songwriter, you sit or stand alone in the privacy and silence of your own house and try to come up with a way to express something you’re feeling…and the ultimate hope is that it will somehow make someone stop and take notice, even for a second. And when you find out that happened, it makes all the parties you missed, dates you passed up (there weren’t that many of those…), good-paying jobs you didn’t apply for, and time you didn’t spend with your friends in order to write something, worth it.

So here is the link to Adam’s blog:

http://mindracinginthestreet.blogspot.com/

The song he mentions is one that I hold close. Not because I knew anyone involved in the events that day. It was written from the perspective of someone with relative distance, but felt the impact and the hurt nonetheless. I remember picking up the guitar that very day and coming up with part of the music for it, and maybe some of the lyrics. But I had to put it down because I wasn’t ready. I knew I wanted to say something, but like many of us I was too confused and numb. Whether or not that confusion ever cleared, I was able to finish it in the few days that followed. As the years have passed, there are times when I wish I had written something that felt like more of an elegy. But it was how I felt.

Oh yeah, and one more thing…Yankees suck.