"The Woods" is one of my favorite songs, and I think we did a great version of it in this set. Rob did an amazing job of capturing the feeling that Michael's lyrics created in the original. It was always fun to play live because it is such a jam, and the guitar just goes crazy at times with Tom's fantastic lines weaving in and around the vocals and keyboard lines. It sounds so much like the original, it just blows my mind.

I wrote the main melody line by accident at a soundcheck one day on tour. I was just noodling around trying to set a delay program. The melody worked over the chord changes I was using by changing one note in the second line.
Michael asked what it was, and I said it was something that had just happened. We started playing it as a band, and the song was finished musically right there.

But what really makes me love the song is the lyric. Michael was moved by the mood of the phrase and the vibe of Tom's guitar riffs and created this incredible song. It is a perfect microcosm of Michael's lyrical style. It starts out very personal with the first verse: "I can see night in the daytime/Into the woods I quietly go/It takes all the strength I have in me/These are the woods the night of the soul"

That is an incredibly poetic image for me. It is also one of Michael's best themes; the idea of struggle between the opposing forces at work in our soul - beauty and grace versus shame and guilt. "Painful to see love without action/It's painful to see years of neglect/Aching to see all that they see/Still telling lies to the remains of respect"

But then the lyric takes a hopeful turn and shows us one of Michael's greatest strengths as a writer. He expands to a universal perspective and identifies the very reason we make art. That is not a small idea, and it is sung as a mighty declaration. Rob totally nailed it live.

"Creatures we are worth defending/It takes the right word said from the heart/Given to you without ending/Given to you the purpose of art"
I have always felt honored to be a part of this purposeful art. So much of contemporary Pop music is just about hormones and relationships. There have been a lot of bands who dug deeper, and there are always writers out there willing to go "into the woods." I applaud them all.

The song ends with an effortless swing from personal to universal in four lines. "Out of these woods will you take me/Out of these woods out of the storm/Sinless child can you save me/Oh guilty Man, freedom is yours."
And then, Tom's guitar takes us on a sweet journey until the original keyboard melody bookends the song for the finish.

If the chords and melody, and the bands arrangement had anything to do with Michael writing those lyrics, then I think we can all say "well done!." That may very well be the best thing about being in an actual band, and I miss that.