I finished writing the last songs for the Come On Pilgrim! album sometime in 2011, and there was a lot of personal turmoil that followed. I didn’t write another song for nearly two years. Sometimes that’s the way it works – you can have so many feelings going on that it makes it impossible to write, or you feel like songs are a frivolous pursuit compared to the reality of life. But songs have always managed to find their way through for me eventually. They have always been a part of my process of growth.

In August of 2013, they began to come all at once. There was no concept, no grand plan, just songs. By the end of September, I had recorded nine new songs as demos, as well as re-recording a song from Summer Friend (“Awake at the End of the Dream”) that I felt a new connection to. I just recorded them as they came, with a vague idea of trying to re-record them professionally and sculpt them into some kind of album.

But time started to go by, and the feelings once so raw started to dissipate a little. These songs had served their purpose of getting me through that time, but a new season had begun in my life and it seemed pointless to go back and dwell in that emotional place. After initially planning on keeping a couple of these for the Little Lights project, that turned into its own exciting new thing and these songs were set aside. Finally, with Little Lights finished, I felt I could share some of these songs, just as they are, as a document of that time. Some are more finished than others, but I think there is a spark here that kept me believing that writing songs is still an important thing for me to do.

 

-Josh Caress

May 2016