This is the story of how a cover song, a pandemic, and an NBC sitcom combined to form the first single off our new album.

The cover song is “Stranger” by Devil Makes Three. It’s a great song. Simple and kind of spooky, with great lyrics and a phenomenal hook. We often cover it and whenever we do it generally brings the house down. We up the tempo and play with abandon; it always feels like we’re moments away from crashing and burning, but it’s written in such a way that a break is never too far away, and if everyone hits it at the right time, it’s magical. MA-GI-CAL!

It pisses me off.

No song that I’ve ever written has ever come close to generating the response that “Stranger” does and it’s a massive blow to my fragile, fragile ego. So I’ve always thought that I needed to write something in the same vein, but nothing ever came.

Then there was a global pandemic. You’ve probably heard of it.

I was very lucky – I worked from home for several years prior to the pandemic, so the shut downs didn’t impact me as much as it did others. I was able to continue working and supporting my family while friends of mine had to all but stop their livelihoods. I wanted to write something that highlighted how scary and uncertain things were and started putting together the chords and melody in between meetings and PowerPoint presentations. I was trying to capture the feeling of “Stranger” without copying it.

It was also during this time that “The Good Place” finished it’s fourth and final season and gave me the last piece of the puzzle I needed to write this song. I’m not going to recap the show or the context because if you haven’t seen this show, stop reading this and go watch it. I’ll wait.

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It was good right? Are you ok? The last episode was a doozy.

Anyway, during one of the episodes, Michael says, “… every human is a little bit sad all the time…” and the line hit me: “Every soul’s just a little bit blue”

I ran to the office and more ideas and lines came spitting out as I interrogated my tendency to write about depressing or otherwise upsetting topics, and how maybe it’s ok because I feel like there’s a lot of joy in the music I produce – especially when I’m playing with the band. And at some point, those thoughts became, “If it’s joy you need, I’ve got some for you. But it comes in a bucket of blue…” and everything else kind of fell into place after that.

I played it for the band during one of our outdoor rehearsals that we started having during the summer of the pandemic, and it slowly coalesced over the course of many rehearsals, although Jom aping the verse melody with the mandolin came about in that first rehearsal, which was super cool.

The lyrics went through a couple more iterations as I refined what I wanted to say – in particular the last pre-chorus was originally written:

I’ll admit that I’m a little bit grim,
But it’s just because the world I’m in
I am basking in the warmth of the pain and sin

to

I’ll admit that I’m a little bit grim,
A consequence of this miasma I’m in
marinated in the soup of disease and sin

Which I think we can all agree is a much better line.

A lot of rehearsing, making sure that the arrangement was as good as we could make it, asking Dave to pretend he was Animal during the drum section in the middle, and we were finally ready to record. That’s a story for another time.

I hope you’re enjoying the song.

-Milton