From the album Passages (2017)
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I remember standing in my backyard after the phone call, trying to figure out what to say to my wife.
We had two young kids, and suddenly, I felt extremely foolish for pursuing a career as a songwriter. How could I have been so stupid? I had nothing to fall back on.
You see, it was 2015, and I’d just been told by my publisher of three years that I was losing my job.
I don’t remember the immediate aftermath. If I were to guess, I’d say I probably wet my pants, then sprinted to the nearest computer to search for manual labor jobs on Craigslist. After that, I probably ate a pail of ice cream while calling myself names like dummy-head and stupid-face.
When the dust settled, though, days or weeks later, I do remember having a feeling of something familiar: faith.
It wasn’t that I knew I’d find another publishing deal or some other way to make it in the music industry; it’s that I knew, no matter what happened, we’d be okay. Why? Because we’d been here before.
If you’re a painter, songwriter, novelist, entrepreneur—anyone who’s been at it for a while—you’ve had to get up from being knocked down countless times. You forget how resilient you are. You’re the kid who fell off their bike, scraped their knee, then saddled back up. You’re the woman who forgot how painful childbirth was, so you’re going to do it again.
Anyway, this is a long way of me saying that’s what this song is about and why I wrote it. Maybe you’re in the valley and just need a reminder: You’ve been here before; you’ll be there soon.
Love,
Aaron