This Lamp - a few words about the song

Sorry for the lack of posting recently - I am on a short (two-month) trip to Australia, and will be continuing to work on my thesis and music and such while I'm here. I only just arrived on Friday March 1st, so it's taken me a few days to get settled. More on that later. For now, here are some thoughts about a song on the new album called "This Lamp", which you can listen to on the left.

"This Lamp" is a popular song among people who have heard me play it live, I think in part because of the groove and the simple words, as well as the images that the words evoke. It comes across as a simple love song, which is good in one way, but not so good in another. We should be clear here: this song is not about a girl.

It may be shocking to some that there are other kinds of love besides romantic love, but that is clearly the case. The kind of love I feel for my parents, for my brothers and sisters, for my friends, and (hopefully one day for my) children - this is not romantic love. And the love that this song in particular talks about is the desire for a relationship that one of the participants left.

I like to tell people that this is the story of an abandoned house, one that once was occupied but now remains empty. Empty, that is, except for the house itself, and the things that make a comfortable home so important to all of us - warmth, light, companionship. Of course this makes it a metaphor for something much larger, but I'll let you connect the dots on your own.