Wow how excellent to return home camping after a few days (so apologies for the delay in writing this) to find all these comments waiting for me. They are particularly encouraging because I'm aware how dark this song leans and how self indulgent darkness can be. The stories I'm writing to are darker than I first acknowledged and so I know I'll have to balance it with light along the way. Even in this story hope is the overriding theme as Loren you recognised in your insightful comments.

Anyway, enough rambling. Thank you everyone for taking the time to comment. I might mention that the recent work of Lucinda Williams and Gretchen Peters has been a revelation to me in how songs can be produced.