ALEX: How is your friend who has cancer in Let People Live?
AARON: Thanks for asking. She passed away in January.
Listen to “Let People Live” via Secret Songs Club on Bandcamp >>
When you went to Florida did you often think “I can’t forget my family soakin’ wet, laughing beside the Atlantic”? Or do you not think about your songs as much as I do?
No, I didn’t think that — probably not even once. And, yes, I don’t think about my songs as much as you 🙂
Are you still caught somewhere between faith and doubt?
Yes.
Do the words of sermons still all sound the same and their meaning is still lost?
I haven’t been to church in a long, long time. The last sermon I heard was when I was visiting my parents in my hometown. But I was too anxious and busy wrangling my kids to hear anything.
Did you sing a song about something to do with Ecuador and the orphan kids or some other kids there when you sang in Minneapolis around 2006-2008? If so, is that demo lying around somewhere?
Yes, here I’ll add it to the Secret Songs Club for you to access.
Listen to “Huerfanos (Orphans) Demo” via Secret Songs Club on Bandcamp >>
Did you make up with JT and his cruel friends or did that altercation really happen?
No, we haven’t made up, but I don’t think he’d even realize or remember what he did. And I haven’t seen him in a long time. The incident in the song is a combination of two things: 1) JT (not his real name) who used to pick on me at the swimming pool and 2) my friend’s childhood experience of being bullied one day with his brother on their way home from school.
Before December 2017 I mentioned in a FB message to you that I really appreciate Just Like My Father. Then in Fargo in December you played it for what you said was the first time in a show. Was that for me, or just coincidence?
That was not just a coincidence. I remembered your Facebook message and that was for you, buddy 🙂
Why are the lines “are you a Christian if you don’t go to church and are you a preacher if you don’t use the good book” in Just Like My Father? Is it because that was a part of home and everyone says you can never go home, so you’re just questioning those ideas out loud, or perhaps just putting the questions out for the listener to think through?
Kind of, yes. I was playing around with perspective. It’s connected to “that woman said she’s not happy with the way she looks / I called her pretty / she said I lie like a crook.” Perspective — like, how we see ourselves versus how others see us. I was just playing around with those ideas. What defines a person?
Why did you write Let’s Go?
Heidi and I were stuck in life. Had no money. Living in our friends’ spare bedroom. I was working at Starbucks; she at Whole Foods. We needed to do something drastic, needed a jump start. I wrote that song in that spare bedroom. She was sleeping next to me.
Have you talked with Luke’s family before or after Hello Lou?
No, I haven’t. I’ve thought about it. I don’t even know if they’ve heard the song. I’ve got mixed feelings about all of it.
Thanks for the questions, Alex.
Love,
Aaron
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