Several December thirds ago we lost a road buddy, roommate, and the most brilliant, diabolically twisted, and tragically troubled musician I ever knew. We'd had a falling out and didn't speak for a long time, but then buried the hatchet at a friend's wedding in Atlanta and drank and talked and laughed all night at the rehearsal dinner until we were the last two in the place and they threw us out. But smiles and laughter sometimes hide dark things. Four months later he was gone.
A few days after he left us I awoke suddenly around 2am to a distinct presence in my darkened bedroom. It was not malevolent or frightening, it was warm and funny. I turned on the light but there was no one there. I sat up in bed and said, out loud, "Dude - did you just HAUNT me? Seriously, you just fucking HAUNTED me. Cut it out!" I immediately got out of bed, fired everything up in my little home studio, and wrote and recorded this. By dawn it had taken shape.
We tried to record it "for real" a few weeks later, but part of the magic of music is that some things you just can't re-create on demand. Conceiving that song was so in-the moment that I decided to use the original guitar, mandolin, and vocal tracks from that night's freaky possessed demo session and we just dubbed bass and drums over it later. Sometimes life is your "producer."