I probably wrote this is an hour one day in Inwood. My girlfriend, Genevieve, was on tour with her theatre group, so I had some time to myself. It must have been shortly after 9/11, because the line about “fighting through that senseless war” was about soldiers being deployed to Afghanistan. The line “I crossed the waters” was about how I often uprooted myself to be with the women I was with.
The first time, I did that, I was twenty years old, and I moved to New York to be with my girlfriend, Ramona. I only stayed for a few months, and we discussed moving back to Louisville, so I could play with my band, Satori. Later, after I graduated college, I moved back (again to be with Ramona). This time we broke up with some finality, and I moved back to Louisville. I moved up to New York a third time, because I thought I had a chance with this girl Glory, which I didn’t, so I ended up coming home in a five weeks.
So when Genevieve proposed that I moved to New York with her, I really had to think about it. It was not the obvious choice it had been the first three times. While I loved her, I felt like I was repeating myself. At one point, she moved to New York without me and I was a bit adrift without her, and I ultimately moved a fourth time to New York. So when I started to write the song, the song I thought I was going to write was more like, “why am I always the one who crosses the waters”? But the song had other ideas.
Now I think the song is not about one person, but how we see the divine in the (for me) women that we fall in love with, and maybe the song is addressed to that feminine divine. I write a lot of those.
I don’t think Genevieve was particularly enthused about the song for some reason, so while I thought it was a good song, I ended up having Phelim sing lead on the song when we began playing out. I thought it worked perfectly for him. He’s from Ireland, and he literally crossed on ocean where he found his true love. I think they had just gotten married when I wrote the song. He used say that he felt like he was “standing in my grave” singing the song, which is ironic, because when I started to sing the song myself, I felt like I was singing Phelim’s song.
Despite being in the studio many times, this song never got recorded for many years. It was not until Brian, Naren and I were in the studio one night at NuMedia that I resurrected the song. By this point, I had tagged on an outro for the song. Before the song seemed too breezy, and I wasn’t inspired to write a bridge. I felt it needed something to give it a more epic feel. I had also bought my first keyboard so I could play piano, which is something that I never got to do unless I was at my parents’ house. Piano was my first instrument, and the song felt perfect on piano. I later added Tonya Buckler’s harmonies to sweeten the sound in my studio in Louisville.
I think this song would close out my musical of the same name. I’m pretty sure that Orpheus would sing this. He sings all the ballads in my musical, and Jason gets the rock songs. I think that Orpheus sings this song to Eurydice, because they have a long-distance relationship, and he’s trying to reassure her that he crosses the water every time. He will be back. I know I am.