conduct raze we'd been playing that one song off and on for almost half our lives, first to explore its newness, then to add to it, then to make sure we wouldn't forget all the different pieces of it. we never gave it a proper recording. we never knew where to put it or where it wanted to go. after years of letting our lives take us different places, we brought ourselves back together and found the spark we first created as teenagers was still there. it never left. he remembered pieces of the song but not the whole thing, so i retaught it to him, and we decided it was time to create some permanent record of the thing. i've been playing bits of this song, with him and without him, here and there, for twelve years. and when i sat down to record my part, i couldn't get it right to save my life. somehow i kept getting in my own way. he went out on the porch for a smoke, to give me some privacy, but that didn't do it. i tried changing the tempo. that didn't do it. i swore a lot. that didn't do it. after about ten failed takes i was sweating. it was strange. i'm not someone who sweats without good reason. he came back inside. i told him i would try one more time, and then i was giving up. so he sat and watched me try, and played air guitar, and in my peripheral vision it looked like he was doing something else. it looked like he was conducting me. in a weird way that encouraged me, relaxed me, and finally i got a take that was good all the way through and we could move on. i guess when things aren't going my way sometimes i need to believe someone's waving an imaginary baton in my direction. 140523 what's it to you? who go blather from