Simple things

The title for Simple things is grabbed from the track Simple, in case it needed pointing out. A lot of the songs are about simple, straight-forward things that often get blown out of proportion or made way more complicated than they are. They are mostly written from the point fo view that things don’t necessarily have to be more than they seem. I hope that was a vague enough explanation.

The first song, Isn’t it enough?, is about a short, superficial crush that lasts about an evening. Stage fright was written around the time I had just moved to Luxembourg, was starting up in a new job and a new apartment, and was about to start up with a new girlfriend as well. It’s about having the courage to do something important, which turns out not to be so scary after all. A beautiful, little while tells the story of a couple that breaks up and can see – after the crying stops – that both are doing better on the other side. Always now is about my second date with the girl from Stage fright, and Diaspora is about the end of something that was too good to be true. In the song, the image is of a god that loses its worshippers and becomes human. River of knives is one of those slightly arrogant songs you get when young people try to tell you about life. In this case the message is, don’t waste your time.

Then you have Simple, which is a somewhat out-of-date response to the idea that you’re wasting your artistic talent if you’re not famous. If you’re not exhibited in museums/shown on TV/played on the radio/sold on Amazon/reviewed in the papers/whatever, you’re wasting your god-given gift, which you have a duty to make money from until you either become a millionaire or smack your head against the wall because you don’t sell enough or aren’t having fun anymore. Also, the song Is a bad excuse for me not to put more effort into my hobbies.

 And then there’s When Harker Allen threw up, which is a song about a guy called Harker Allen who threws up.