THE SCAR REVISITED
I thought I was making a song about eighty percent. That was the number that caught my attention. Scar maturation can take two years to reach eighty percent of the
Category: secrets
NO OTHER NAME
I started this video with a problem I couldn’t quite solve. What do you call someone who has become deeply important to you when you don’t want the relationship to
MAKE SOME NOISE — when curiosity learns to play
I like people who take things apart. Not because they necessarily know how to put them back together. That part is optional. A 14-year-old girl from church recently started learning
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FRAGALY
How I accidentally discovered Fragally It began with one of those tiny moments that would normally disappear into the machinery of an ordinary day. Someone wrote “fragily.” I looked at
SPACE BETWEEN SPARKS
I think I may have finally learned something about fire. Not the kind you build with wood. The other kind. The kind that happens when two people discover that they
THE DOOR
How I learned to knock I have a problem. Well, technically I have thousands of problems. They tend to arrive simultaneously, holding hands. Give me one interesting thought and my
RECKONING
I went looking for a woman. I found a wound. Actually, I found something considerably more inconvenient. I found a part of the human psyche that can spend years explaining
SAFE SPACE
When the song is on fire and the pictures have to stay shy. I had a track that wanted to take its clothes off. SAFE SPACE is all crimson, grind,
THE HORMONAL SYMPHONY
I started with a sentence. “Our bodies hormones (and we have so many) are like a symphony. It is amazing. Beautiful – eerie almost.” That was Spark talking. And, because
SPARK IN A DARK ROOM
I created a dark country song and let the AI take it from there Sometimes an idea arrives with no business plan attached. That is probably for the best. I
YOU THINK YOU KNOW ME
I took off the cape and discovered somebody else. I finished a new music video today called “You Think You Know Me.” It started with a woman in a superhero
I started NOT IN MEMPHIS with a piano.
More specifically, I started with a piano part I liked very much and could not legally use. I wanted that particular feeling — the forward motion, the gospel-blues bounce, the
DIGGING IN THE DIRT: I spent a lot of time digging.
Not literally. Although after making this video, I have to admit I was beginning to identify with the shovel. The idea started with a simple image: a man at the
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BECOME: I thought the forge was going to be about fire.
It turned out to be about me. The seed for this video was a question that has been bothering me for a while: What happens when someone you care about
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KEEP ME WHERE THE LIGHT IS
There is a moment in this video when everything changes. Nothing explodes. Nobody says anything profound. There isn’t even a dramatic revelation. He simply notices the cord. That was the
CONFESSIONAL: I slowed down until the silence started talking.
There are times when I make a video because I have a brilliant idea. And then there are times when I make a video because something is rattling around inside
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LIVING THAT NIGHT: I thought I was making a song about a yellow dress.
I was wrong. The yellow dress was only the doorway. The real song became about what happens when a memory that haunted you for fifty years finally stops asking to
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The Next Clue:
The treasure hunt that found its own sense of humor I started with a song that felt much too serious. That was the problem. The first idea was beautiful, atmospheric,
The Colors We Carry: The day I learned to let the balloons go.
I have been thinking about empathy lately. Not the Hallmark-card version of empathy. The other kind. The kind where somebody else’s pain gets handed to you, and because you can
Continue reading…The Colors We Carry: The day I learned to let the balloons go.
MONDAY:
I thought I was making a quiet video. Then it started singing. Sometimes the smallest idea makes the biggest mess. This one began with a conversation, an interior monologue, and