My friend Chance, a truly singular personality, has a great story about a job he took many years ago in remote Alaska as groundskeeper for a resort during the off season. A real REDRUM situation. He didn’t see another person for a long, long time. Whiteout conditions. No access to phone or internet. Just him, some books, and his fragile human brain. He talked about hearing voices. He talked about having a sort of spiritual experience out there. Maybe only withstandable becaus

It’s July 2013.  I’m sitting on a train headed northwest from London to Stratford-upon-Avon. My travel companion, Noah Hall, is sitting across the aisle. I’m wondering if the dark cloud that landed with me at Heathrow is big enough now to swallow him, too. There’s been a heatwave killing people in London. We’ve been mostly on foot to save cash, dragging around our luggage and guitars, missing our stops, walking in circles, exhausted and hungry. I have a then-undiagnosed autoi

This song begs to be cried-sung at the top of your lungs at 3am on the highway to a suburb of St. Louis where you’re about to shoplift...

Hello! It’s a been a while. If you didn’t already know, I’ve been swimming in a sea of depression after closing down the nonprofit I’ve...

This song is gentle, but sassy. It’s sweet and naive, and also whimsically arrogant in its self mythologizing. And make it a double,...

The year was nineteen and ninety-seven. Spring Break in the big city. My uncle, a snob about most things, hands me an almost new compact...

This song belly flops into the pool in a dingy pink bath robe that belongs to its ex. Its loved ones speculate privately about whether it...

This song calls you on the telephone, its voice too rough with cigarettes. It got a little too drunk and won’t shut up about the...

Welcome to my new series called Perfect Songs: A Feelings-Based Analysis of Songs You Should Listen to Many Times Throughout Your Life ....