Colder Months (2001)

I consider this a rainy day in song form. I was sitting on my couch in my tiny downtown cottage for a whole afternoon, just listening to it patter. I started playing these same four chords over and over, just like they are in the finished song, only for hours. I felt like I was part of the rain; that my guitar was a cloud that had hit its full capacity, and the notes were droplets that had to keep falling to keep the soundhole from flooding. Nothing worse than a backed-up guitar, right? After a couple of hours of this, some words started to float across the puddles collecting on my living room floor, and the reflections of the lonely images they cast were softened and enveloped by this deep sense of contentment, and of the joy of daring to look directly at what is, rather than glancing sideways at something you hope could be different. Anyone who knows me can vouch that I pretty much live for hot sunny days. But when it's raining, it's raining. And rain can be stunningly beautiful, if you let it. Not to mention the puddle-stomping opportunities it creates, the importance of which is not to be underestimated. =)

The wine, by the way, was a wonderful Zaca Mesa Grenache.