Began with the G riff, humming that and dreaming of it's place in a song, trying it at different tempos and in various time signatures. That was in France, middle of the countryside in autumn, looking across the fields.

I worked on different parts of the lyrics all through that Christmas in London, figured out the form, bridges and choruses and such, but really the song took shape back in the US during and after a reconnection with a dear friend. We'd grown distant, mistrustful, slightly bitter. He reached out and offered a truce of sorts, let's move on kinda thing, and then had a rather dangerous week or two with extreme complications from a knee surgery. Really put being pissed off in perspective.

And the line "...that life depends on them fools and your friends" was told to me repeatedly in song by Brandon Butler, someone I've looked up to for a long time as a brother, a poet, a visionary storyteller. So the song ended up being about friendship, self control and honesty, the value of time, holding on for dear life.