It's a nearly empty can and a smoky New Mexico beer joint.
It's a walk around Central Park.
It's a final look at the world through completely independent eyes.
It's the feel of raindrops falling from a Tennessee midnight on the back of the neck.
It's a dollar tossed like a volcano-bound sacrificial lamb into a street performer's
guitar case and offering to the graces you hope Lady Luck never decides to reconsider.
This is my sixth record.
This has been my living for almost a decade, writing songs, recording them, and hitting
the road.
That amount of time barely registers as anything at all when compared to the rule of Rome.
If my songs were people, the eldest would not yet have graduated from the fifth grade.
By the time you hear these words, I will have released 62 songs, played more than 1,750
shows, and driven enough miles to get all the way from my house to the moon.
So that means my music is one of three things, a flash in the pan, an awkward and unsure
middle schooler, or a grizzled old veteran who still has a long way to go until he makes
it back to earth.
This weird business changes so much that it could be any of those depending on who you
ask.
I'm not even sure I know where I am in the grand scheme of things.
Maybe this is a strange way to introduce myself, but it's the truth.
I don't know if this record will fall towards the beginning, the middle, or the end along
the timeline of my so-called musical career.
I honestly don't.
What I do know, however, is that this is the best collection of songs I've ever put together.
This record sounds better than anything I've ever done before.
The words mean more to me than I ever thought words could.
The melodies feel like old friends.
The harmonies feel like old friends, too.
Here are 11 songs that I picked up somewhere out there, on the way from that beer joint
in New Mexico, to the midnight shower in Tennessee, and along all of the points in between.
This is Wide Listener.
I hope you love it.
