Thoughts on the Album:
Fall EP
“During my years in Switchfoot I have been fortunate enough to stumble across all sorts of songs as a songwriter- some are perfect for a rock band to play and others are far too intimate. Some need to be played in arenas with electric guitars, some deserve to be played with simply a cello and a bass clarinet.
Tim, Chad, and the boys, (and many of you) have been encouraging me to get the softer songs out for years. Now that we are independent, that dream of ours is finally coming true.
Over the course of the year I will be releasing 4 ep’s, with 6 songs on each ep. The ep’s will be seasonal: fall, winter, spring & summer.
The Fall ep features the following 6 songs:
1. The Cure For Pain
2. Equally Skilled
3. Lord, Save Me From Myself
4. The Moon Is A Magnet
5. My Love Goes Free
6. Southbound Train
I am so privileged to have such an amazing group of supportive people around me. I would never had undertaken this project if it were not for your help and encouragement. Thank you so much!
I can’t wait to share these tunes with you.”
- jon
Song Stories:
Song stories credit: AntiMusic.com
The Cure for Pain
I wrote this one in Texas on a day off. I was reflecting on the passing of time. I have been playing music in Switchfoot for about ten years. During that period, I have been fighting pain or running away from it in a myriad of ways. And yet the pain is a constant. I have had some amazing moments singing gravity away but the water keeps on falling.
I began to think the suffering I see around me, I think of the pain of a grandmother dying of cancer. Of a friend killed by a train. I think of the pain of death, of failure, of rejection, the pain of a father losing his only son. And I came to the conclusion that I cannot run from pain any longer.
Southbound Train
Wrote this one on the train from Santa Barbara to San Diego. Trains are romantic. Planes are business cards, cars are like family, but trains feel more like a dating relationship. I live near the train tracks and I wanted this track to feel like a train.
Keith rocked the cello, as always. I love the cello. My friend Jamie (who runs to write love on her arms, a great organization worth checking out), was staying at my place while we were tracking this. I remember both of us sitting on the carpet listening to either lay this down. I remember we used a pillow and breathing for the percussion.
Lord, Save Me From Myself
The recording process for this project was entirely different from a band approach. Instead of building the songs on the foundation of drums and bass, we built them around the vocal. I would play the tune down, (often the night I wrote it) guitar and vocal at the same time. Plain and simple. I wanted these songs to sound exactly like I recorded them late at night at my house. So that’s what I did.
But I get bored with the singer songwriter thing. I wanted to add some of my favorite instruments into the mix. But instead of fitting the vocal into the production I wanted to build the production around the vocal. But the vocal had the final say. We tried to put drums on a few of the other songs but the songs repelled them. I think this is the only song on this EP where the drums actually stuck around. Wrote this one in Detroit on my sister’s guitar, this mini thing, might have been a baby Taylor.
Equally Skilled
I read somewhere that, Good writers borrow, great writers steal. I remember reading through Dylan’s lyrics one time and realizing much of their timeless power came from the fact that they were stolen directly from the Jewish scriptures. This is a song stolen from Micah. Maybe prophecy is timeless, transcendent truth breathed into a language I can understand.
My brother Tim had the great idea to reintroduce the intro after the second chorus. He’s super smart. I’m glad he’s on my team.
The Moon Is A Magnet
This is an older tune of mine. I love odd time signatures- this one is in nine. I usually count it five then four then five then four… so fun to play. I was honored to have a man who is comfortable with complex time signatures play on this one: Jeff Coffin, (of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones fame) I love the bass clarinet. Such a beautiful instrument played by a true master.
The trick with this song is that through the time signature is fairly out there, the melodic changes are pretty strict. So it feels like the jazzy notes will work but they won’t. I remember showing this song to Jeff and hearing the song with new ears, I’m not sure where it came from, but it’s a great, odd piece of music that feels almost like a cover sometimes.