PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN

DEMOS

I wrote this song on a bad day in 2018, and I knew back then it would be the first song on this album before I had even conceived of it. I started with the instrumental in FL Studio because I was trying to capture an abstract feeling I didn't have words for yet. I recorded this voice memo on April 20th, 2018, the day I came up with it.

And here's the earliest recorded version of the lyrics I schlocked out into a voice memo on May 1st 2018. I love how it starts out with a mistake in the first few seconds. I say the sunset is "a million miles away," when in fact the sun is MANY MILLIONS of miles away (about ninety million, as it turns out).

PART TWO

I think I’m living the dream now, baby

Paying rent like a boss

Outta college and I go to work daily

Even if I’d rather not

But

Gotta get that money, bitch

Slow my bleedin' out bank account sitch

Slippin' money in my 401k, yeah

I’m savin' up for a rainy day

We’re clinically depressed and that’s okay

Sittin' round waitin' for darker days

I’m just another kid's been led astray

Sittin' round waiting for darker days

I cried myself to sleep last night

Got a full eight hours, it was so tight

Need my rest for my 9-to-5

Cause if I’m tired, I can’t do my boys right

Got no plans for the weekend

Gonna try and write

Mentally jump in the deep end

Come up empty handed, cry about it and then pretend

I’m a nihilist, nothing matters anyway

We’re clinically depressed and that’s okay

Sittin' round waitin' for darker days

I’m just another kid's been led astray

Sittin' round waiting for darker days

I wanna make a statement, baby

I wanna say what’s on my mind

But now I’m too damn tired to be angry

I’m just a slave to the grind

I wanna make a statement, baby

I wanna say what’s on my mind

But now I’m too damn tired to be angry

I’m just a slave to the grind

I wanna make a statement, baby

I wanna say what’s on my mind

But now I’m too damn tired to be angry

I’m just a slave to the grind

I wanna make a statement, baby

I wanna say what’s on my mind

But now I’m too damn tired to be angry

I’m just a slave to the grind

I wanna make a statement, baby

I wanna say what’s on my mind

But now I’m too damn tired to be angry

I’m just a slave to the grind

ABOUT THIS SONG

It was a Monday morning. I had to go to work. I woke up in a slurry of existential fury and despair over the fact that I had to slog out to the office again to spend all day at a desk.

I worked a pretty typical desk job from 2017-2020. I wouldn't say I hated my old job. I loved a lot of things about it, but it was far from the “dream gig.” Along with nearly everybody I worked with I just didn’t want to be there forever. Most days weren't too bad, some were worse than others, but the day I wrote this song was a rock bottom day. No particular reason—I’m just a fickle, emotional little man boy and would rather be dead sometimes than spend 8 hours in an office chair. I’m definitely not special in feeling that way.

For me, it feels like a mental health issue, and working from home ever since the pandemic has been a small silver lining on that noxious mushroom cloud.

2020 was a dogshit year. It forced a perspective change on many of us, prompting a mass refactoring of our attachment to our jobs and commitments. It had me thinking, “Even if everything works out socioeconomically, climate change still threatens to sterilize the planet of modern human civilization in the next century. We all have a limited amount of time breathing on this rock and to spend the majority of it being exploited by multi-billion dollar corporations as a means to barter for basic human necessities seems preposterous to me in the grand scheme of things.” So, that was good.

Sometimes dreams and ambitions get justifiably sidelined in exchange for necessities like healthcare and mortgage payments. I was lucky enough to fall into a 9-5 job out of college that I found relatively fulfilling, managed to pay my meager bills and only made me want to bash my head into the wall on rare occasions—but it’s not WHAT I’m here on Earth to do, y’know...

I started writing the lyrics to Darker Days in my head on my commute to work and finished them at some point during the day at my desk. Songs almost never come to me as quickly as this one did, but I was in such a despicable mood that my inhibitions were hobbled, and I just word vomited the lyrics into an iPhone note in a rush of inspiration.

The cheek in this song runs deep, born out of genuine, smoldering anger and the tidal wave of depression I sometimes feel on Monday mornings.

PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN

DEMOS

This is a very early version of the mix from May 2019. A few weeks before recording it I blurted out the lyrics to this song in an iPhone note at work one day, and the track came just as spontaneously when I got home, which almost never happens. Sometimes when inspiration strikes you just gotta WRANGLE IT.

I'd never written anything even remotely close to R&B or hip-hop before, and I really don't know if this even counts. As I was writing it I wanted to pair my self-deprecating lyrics about living with depression to a track that gives none of that away if you're ignoring the words. Specifically, I wanted to frame the song musically as if it were about how DOPE my life is but slip little nuggets of crushing honesty in there, e.g. "𝘐 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵... 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴, 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘰 𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵."

That's easily the most hated line in the song, and it's my favorite. I understand that it appears I'm making light of clinical depression, but every part of that sentence is true! And since I can't afford a therapist at the moment a full night's rest is doubly worth celebrating, imo.

PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN

DEMOS

I'd been sitting on the main guitar riff to this song for a while but didn't know how to write lyrics to it.

Before writing Save My Breath, I came up with this instrumental track. It has a completely different vibe, but it's inspired by the same frustrations. I named it "Magnifying Glass" because I felt like I was living under one at the time and made this music video using old footage of my friends because I was feeling nostalgic in the midst of it all.

I recorded this clumsy-ass voice memo the day I started writing the lyrics, Jan 28th 2018. I knew the basic rhythm of the lyrics, but I was just stabbing blindly at the melody.

The night before this, the bois and I played a terrible show at a Nashville pizza place called Two Boots. It was a dystopian nightmare of an evening. The stage was outside under a more-or-less covered patio and it was MONSOONING. Our show was riddled with technical difficulties, forgotten lyrics and general fuckery. There were approximately five people in the audience, and one of them was, to my surprise, Bobby Ray Chumbley.

This was a few weeks after I told her over the phone that we couldn't speak anymore. I was extremely uncomfortable and the performance suffered. We ending up talking briefly, I reiterated what I had said before and left as soon as possible. It really sucked for everyone involved.

Finally, here's the first mix of the song from Feb 2018. I slave over fine tuning my tracks, yet I wouldn't be surprised if some FIEND out there prefers this to the finished version.

PART FOUR

I can't believe what I'm about to say

I never thought that I would feel this way

I don't regret what I did last May

But I think I could go back for just one day

It's time to break out the tools

And build a brand-new contraption

Tighten some screws, fasten some belts

And write down some thoughts about you

I'm not a lost cause

I think we're both better off stag

Honestly, life without you has been good

I've got this flying solo thing in the bag

But despite all your flaws

And my slightly selective recall

I still miss you like I knew that I would

But that doesn't mean I want you back at all

I'd just go back for a day if I could

I'll make myself a machine

To scrounge up the dreams and bittersweet memories

Then I will wrench them all dry with glistening eyes

‘Cause it’s high time I wiped the slate clean

Grieve at your own pace

Don’t spend too much time alone

Ha, like you would, I know you’ll do just great

Venturing forth into the unknown

I still see your face

Now and then putting me right in my place

Don’t let me be misunderstood

We’re done for good, keep going your own way

I’d just go back

Take me at my word

I didn’t write this to make you hurt

I just miss you like I knew that I would

Like one day I’ll finally be free from this curse

I’d just go back for a day if I could

ABOUT THIS SONG

This song makes me feel dirty. For a time, I swore I would never let it see the light of day. I revised the lyrics multiple times; at one point they were about my cat, another version was incredibly vague and watered down, and ultimately I kept revising the song until I made a full circle back to roughly an equivalent of the first version.

You see, I wrote it shortly after I wrote Save My Breath, while I was still coping with the fallout of the breakup, and I think it was born out of some kind of innate masochism.

I was having dim flickers of doubt, mild pangs of regret right after finally escaping months of what felt like emotional abuse. I didn't want to go back, but I decided I would go back for just one day, to the brief period where the relationship was good, just to pick at the scab. Fuck me, what’s wrong with me?*

I guess if I had a Whovian time machine that allowed me to relive moments of my past like some kind of VR archive of my memories and experiences, there are a lot moments I would briefly revisit, good and bad, just to remember what they felt like. But I don’t think it would be healthy.

Cognitive dissonance aside, this song was actually very fun to produce and features one of my favorite instrumental breaks on the whole record starting at 2:17. I don’t have a specific reason for it being my favorite. I dunno. I just like it a lot, and there aren’t any words about yearning to reprise an abusive relationship during it.

PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN

DEMOS

This voice memo from March 6th, 2018 is the earliest trace of this song's existence I can find, and in it you can hear me actively tryna figure out the melody like an ass.

I mocked up the instrumental for this song almost immediately after writing it in 2018, but I didn't record the vocals until this year because I kept tweaking the words over and over again. This is the MP3 that I lived with for TWO YEARS. If I hadn't produced this instrumental in Spring 2018 while the song was fresh and new, it almost definitely wouldn't have made it on the album today.

PART FIVE

I think we should go out and get some sun

Our days living in darkness should be done

Grab your camera, set the speed to fun

Let me show your face to everyone

Let’s hit the bagel shop and then the park

Later we could catch some modern art

Then lie down on the grass until it’s dark

I wanna ride my bike with you

Cruisin’ by the blue

And I wanna spend the day with you

And I think we should set sail for the beach

California’s never out of reach

Sunglasses on, just come with me

And I wanna ride my bike with you

Cruisin’ by the blue

And I wanna spend the day with you

Yes I do

Take on the world, no strings attached

Let’s get out of Nash

Make some memories made to last

Come, ride with me into the setting sun

Our days in the dark are finally done

But you know

I wanna ride my bike with you

Cruisin’ by the blue

And I wanna spend the day with you

Yes I do

Take on the world no strings attached

Let’s get out of Nash

Make some memories made to last

ABOUT THIS SONG

If Go Back is about yearning to relive one day of my past, Bike Ride is the memory of that very day. This song is breezy and barely fits on the record. I love it.

The story of this song didn’t literally happen. It’s like… a fantasy song. It’s the carefree backing track to an idyllic montage of a relationship that absolutely wasn’t real, but of course I wanted it to be when I wrote it. It’s a portrait of the kind of romance that solves all your problems: suddenly life makes sense, everything is right with the world, and you can persevere through anything as long as you have each other. You know, that old chestnut.

No, it definitely wasn’t a reality for me, but I could imagine the feeling I’d caught glimpses of (while ignoring the warning signs of what was to come) long enough to immortalize it in a song. To me, this isn’t a love song... like I said, more of a fantasy song, if there's even a distinction to be made there.*

Just like Go Back, I wasn’t planning on releasing this song because I didn't want to risk stirring anything up with B. Chumbley, but I decided:

1. It slapped too hard to ignore

2. Enough time had passed that it shouldn’t be misconstrued.

This song closes the three-part saga of Bobby Ray Chumbley on this album. If you’re reading this Bobby, hope you're having a good one!!

PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN

DEMOS

I only have one trace of this song's conception: this voice memo from March 17th, 2017, probably the day I wrote it. This is probably the "happiest" song on the album, and at risk of sounding like a contrived, melodramatic putz, I usually don't do happy songs very well. But not for lack of trying.

I distinctly remember TRYING to write happy songs around this time because I was really preoccupied with my catalog of almost exclusively depressing music. I'm more or less over it now, more focused on honesty, although I do still go out of my way sometimes to try to find positive things to write about.

PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN

DEMOS

Since I started producing the track to this song before writing the lyrics, here's an extremely old version of the mix (from January 2nd, 2019) with a pretty different vibe.

Sometimes I don't know what I'm trying to say when I start a song, but for this one I definitely set out specifically to write about my mixed feelings towards Christian scripture.

Oft the case when I write music, I was in a not-great place emotionally around the time this song came to fruition. One night I was hanging out with one of my closest friends, who happens to be a devout Christian, and he could tell I wasn't doing well. He knows I'm atheist and is always respectful of that - we rarely talk about religion - but he'd seen me struggling for a while. For him, the answer became Jesus around sophomore year of college, and it dramatically changed his life. Being a good friend, it sucked for him to see me in turmoil. My friend wanted to help me, and I think from his point of view, knowing wholeheartedly that Jesus loves me, helping myself was as simple as opening myself to Him.

But, knowing me, my friend wasn't going to preach, and seeing the conflict on his face really affected me that night. I felt bad for him because he wanted to help me but couldn't, and bad for myself because even at my most desperate lows I'm still too cynical to embrace religion when the door is being held wide open for me.

PART SEVEN

When I’m good and dead

I think I might haunt you, at least for a while

And if you depart instead

You can have my body

Possess me if you like

But if we die

At the same time

I will embrace the void

Falling with you by my side

Don’t say goodbye

No grief, no need to cry

Just close your eyes

And dive, dive, dive

What’s on the other side

Doesn’t really trouble me all that much

And if it’s full of fire that probably means

Our immortal bodies retain their sense of touch

Yeah if we die

I think we’ll be alright

I will embrace the void

Falling with you by my side

Don’t say goodbye

No grief, no need to cry

Just close your eyes

And dive, dive, dive

There’s nothing left to fear

When our days are short and things look bleak

Just sidle up real close, lend me your ear

You can always find me

Even when you’re asleep

Yeah if we die

At the same time

I will embrace the void

Falling with you by my side

Don’t say goodbye

No grief, no need to cry

Just close your eyes

And dive, dive, dive

ABOUT THIS SONG

This one’s about another girl, not Bobby Chumbley. Let’s call her Blanche. We’re not dating anymore, but I wrote this song when we were, and today we’re still good friends.

Blanche and I became super close over a short period of time. A few months in I was thinking about who I would haunt as a ghost if I died right then and there. That got me thinking about the afterlife and If We Die manifested shortly after. In a nutshell, "if we die and we’re still chillin’ in the afterlife, I ain’t afraid of it.”

As I work through writing out these song journals, I’m re-living a lot of the experiences that went into making these songs, and I’d like to correct a statement I made about my favorite instrumental moment in the album. The music that carries this song from 2:42 until the end may be my personal favorite non-vocal section of Living the Pipe Dream.

It feels like… approaching something grand and ominous, thrilling and terrifying, like drifting towards supermassive black hole where Death awaits you at the precipice of the event horizon. You’re scared because you don’t know what’s on the other side, but you also know that inevitably you’ll have no choice but to cross over. At 3:16, Death reaches out and offers you it’s hand. Hesitantly, you reach out to take it, and…

PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN

DEMOS

Here's a stripped down version of If We Die that Kytoon live-guitarist Aaron Itzkovitz and I were practicing for a show last year. It's much closer to the original version I wrote on guitar. Much more ambient and quiet...

I like the stripped down version of this song a lot, so for a while I thought about recording two versions of this song for the album. Ultimately I did record two versions, but for a different reason...

THAT is the first version of If We Die. There are a lot of little differences in the instrumental, but for the most part it's extremely similar to the final version on the album... except EVERYTHING IS A HALF-STEP HIGHER.

At some point after making that recording, I realized the song miraculously suited my voice 10x better a half-step lower in pitch. So much better that I was willing to throw out countless hours of work to redo all the vocals, harmonies and guitar parts from scratch. Please validate my decision, tell me the final version is better and that the extra work was worth it.

PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN

DEMOS

"Someday" by Sugar Ray was VAGUELY an inspiration for this instrumental. I made it in 2018 for a music licensing library that was looking to add new tracks to it’s broad “rock” category. Before this song had words, it was called Stellar Sunglasses, and the licensing company immediately rejected it because it was “too soft.” They wanted something more indie-sounding and... "hard" I guess.

I was happy to have the rights back because I thought it was a fuckin’ bop and wanted to make it mine from the beginning. On an off-day some time after the rejection, I wrote lyrics to the instrumental, and "Off Day" arose from their tragic, tragic loss.

Here's the oldest recording I have from writing this song (7.25.19) when I was obviously still tryna figure out the melody and exact wording.

I got stuck af writing the chorus on this, and it took me weeks to figure out. I dunno if it's this way for everybody, but I normally have the hardest time writing choruses. I wanna say so much but use as few words as possible.

I had the words but couldn't make it musical in a way I was happy with. I asked local accomplice Audriana Nigg for her opinion on how it should flow, and this was her idea. This was like the second-to-last version of the chorus before I revised it to the final version but I LIKE BOTH.

PART NINE

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong

Pick a rhyme, set the time and dance on the page

You can do it too, there’s nothing to it in this age

Can you wail loud enough, can you make a change?

Step in line and get to it, do it again

What do you want, what do you need from this century?

Family, fortune, fame or life in penitentiary?

The doors are locked and sealed but music is the key

Sing a song and if it fits

Open up and see your destiny

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong

With me

Hold my hand

Let’s fall into our dreams

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong

With me

(Falling)

If something doesn’t work you can try again

But sacrifice is the name of the game my friend

Notoriety’s what you really want? Well then

Let’s go join the fun and see it through to the end

Our righteous raucous noise will right the wrongs of humankind

And we’ll be having fun and saving lives at the same time

If you’re ever criticized for your frame of mind

Drop a line and tell them this

Open up and see your destiny

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong

With me (with me)

Hold my hand

Let’s fall into our dreams (fall into our dreams)

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong

With me

(Falling)

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong with me

Nothing’s wrong

WARNING: SELF-INDULGENT RANT BELOW

Music can’t even fix my problems; it’s definitely not going to fix our broken world. Anybody who implies that they're a musician out of altruism and/or that the world NEEDS them to do it is out of their GOddamn mind.

Sometimes I see artists try to leverage tragedies and suffering for self-aggrandizement. A few years ago, a shooting occurred at a Waffle House here in Nashville and four people inside were tragically killed. Days later, a prolific rapper I went to school with (let’s call him Chet), who had until then been silent about the shooting, suddenly posted that he “just found out that one of the victims was a fan.. RIP bruv.” He had nothing else to say, and didn't mention the ongoing GoFundMe for the families of the victims. Maybe you have to know the guy to understand how infuriating that was so see, but it was pretty wild.

A tornado destroyed east Nashville overnight in early 2020, and Chet was on the scene the next day live streaming the wreckage and debris to his artist profile with no call to action while first responders searched for survivors.

As I write this, riots are erupting all across the United States over the police killing of George Floyd, including here in Nashville, and oddly, despite having a considerable platform and constantly appropriating black culture for his artist persona (as a white guy), Chet has been completely silent about it. He 𝘪𝘴 dropping a new single on Blackout Tuesday though.

If you can’t tell, I've had a problem with this guy for a long time. This song isn’t about Chet because I didn’t know him in 2015 when I wrote it, but if I had it probably would have been.

The self-aggrandizement I reference in Nothing’s Wrong With Me is of a more subtle, innocuous variety:

• Contrived, milquetoast songs about hope that are vaguely sponsored by some charity for ending hunger...

• Music videos about coming together in the time of Coronavirus that need to be put out ASAP while it’s still trendy and relevant to do so...

• Hammy ads comprised of stock footage and bland inspirational music from every corporation on the planet, trying desperately to save face and convince its customers that it cares about its employees... etc.

These things are mostly benign, really, and at the end of the day I don’t have a huge issue with them. Maybe they do more good than harm. It's just virtue signaling. And I’ll admit I’m bitter and petty.

TLDR: This song is about how artists (myself included) sometimes delude themselves, and spiritually about people like this guy Chet who self-righteously capitalize on the suffering of others as a means to boost streaming traffic.

PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN

DEMOS

This is one of the oldest songs on the album. It was one of seven songs I played for my first ever Kytoon show at a mostly-vacant dive bar in Murfreesboro, TN. I was a much different boy when I wrote it in 2015, but the song still rings true in my heart of hearts. Unlike most of my old songs when I revisit them, I never revised the lyrics to this one.

However, the production around it went through many different phases - mainly the chorus sections. Here's the original version of the instrumental... with a much chiller approach to the chorus.

There's a weird energy to this tune that I was really struggling to nail down. I couldn't decide if I wanted to go in a heavy, rock-ier direction or lean full-tilt into EDM. Ultimately I landed somewhere in the middle, opting for the chorus to serve as a big buildup to an extended, dancey instrumental section.

PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN

DEMOS

Below is technically the first recorded version of this song (not recorded with an iPhone) from back yonder in 2016. I made it for an Ableton Live class while I was still learning the software, so the production is... interesting.

It's got the old lyrics on it that diverge majorly in the second verse. This version is more accusatory, really kind of hostile. The smoldering sadness of the finished version feel much more real to me now than the thinly-veiled anger of this version, but this was recorded waaaay back when the events were still relatively fresh, and I was maybe... less mature. Maybe.

This song predates Kytoon itself. Here's the oldest recording I can find of it from August 2015. This recording is silly for many reasons. It's one of the oldest songs I've ever written I really couldn't sing back then either. It originally had this super long descending piano instrumental section that was supposed to repeat like three times. Also, like the track above, the lyrics are way different starting from the second verse.

Also, for funsies, here's an early draft of the instrumental track from last year while I was working on this song if you're interested. There are some pretty significant differences!!

PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN

DEMOS

I wrote this song from a deep mental trench in 2017. I was in the middle of an emotionally abusive relationship (read about songs from 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝗧𝘄𝗼). I really wasn't feeling my life at that time and this song has some obviously dark implications in the lyrics.

I was neck deep in writer's block and this song was the only thing I could come up with. I didn't know what to do with it back then though, because if I was to be honest with my girlfriend-at-the-time about it I would have had to reveal 1: how depressed I really was and 2: how culpable she was in my unhappiness. I knew I wasn't going to do that, so I recorded this performance in my room before shelving the song indefinitely.

This song was left untouched for almost three years until I opened it up again to put it on the album. Another song I wrote not long after this one is actually queued up for tomorrow, and it's the finale of Living the Pipe Dream.

Both songs are like time-capsules from one of the most tangibly shitty times of my life, a period that I often feel like I'm still recovering from and the impact of which pervades nearly the whole album.

PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN

DEMOS

The first time I tried to record this song was in 2018 and I took a very very very different approach to it. The vision was to do this folky, chuggin' full band arrangement - drums, bass, elec guitar, etc. and this track here was supposed to be like a demo for my bandmates.

Eventually I backed away from the full band idea and I'm glad I did because I think this song absolutely ought to be stripped down like the album version. THIS track below was originally going to be the album version of Over the Mountain. Recorded by my friend Blount Floyd with a single room mic at his house, the vision here was to do the song literally as stripped down as possible. No other instruments or production, just this raw take.

Honestly I really like this recording but ultimately I felt like it was TOO raw sounding in the context of the album. Also, I was lusting over the idea of adding strings to it.

I remember writing pretty much this whole song in one afternoon while sitting in my kitchen. I was in a mood, and the song came with no resistance. I'm not certain but I'm PRETTY sure this iPhone recording is from that day I wrote it in November 2017. I have no idea why I'm playing it so fast, I don't remember ever playing it like that, but I was probably just trying to get the ideas down.