Episode 8 - Strangers Waiting
Eureka!
This week’s episode was a breakthrough for me. Strangers Waiting is a song I started writing in 2012, right on the tails of releasing Carry The Fire and with the intention of placing the song on After It All. But I could never get the whole idea to come together. I went through lyric draft after lyric draft, then scrapped the whole verse melody and started from scratch. We wrote a whole other version of the song, but it never quite landed. There were good moments, but the lyrics and themes felt derivative and I lost the magic of the original inspiration.
Ultimately I went back to my first draft and tried to pick up the thread. I needed a second story that supported the idea of “strangers waiting for their eyes to meet, easy as the sun is rising.” The love story of the first verse was a no-brainer and was pulled from the simple southern romances of some of my favorite novels. But what other story watches strangers come together with the ease of a morning’s first light? And then it happened… bing!… what about an estranged father and son and a reconciliation after years of anger and hurt?? I still had to tumble through the lyrics a bit to make it work, but I loved that two men reuniting after a bitter argument and the years between was so naturally a story of strangers waiting for their eyes to meet.
I feel really satisfied with how this came together. Ultimately, I hope this song will live at the nexus of Otis Redding, Ray LaMontagne, and Bruce Hornsby.
Check out the other demos we’ve done over the years to hear the failed (but still very pretty!) second draft of Strangers Waiting and how beautiful Liz and the band sound on this one.
Let me know what you think!
Love,
Ian
DOWNLOAD STRANGERS WAITING: MP3
Strangers Waiting
— First Edition Handwritten Lyrics —
for sale now in the Secret Store
