"The Genie and the Bottle of Creativity" (July 2007)

Nothing like a deadline to either crush the creative spirit or light it ablaze like a tinder dry forest. I've always been one who writes in fits and starts - lots of writing, but focused on bursts of different kinds of writing at different times. This spring has definitely been fits of crushed soda cans and blazing forests both. A bit disconcerting, yes, but I guess I've been at this long enough to learn how to channel the process.

This new album is certainly going to be full of interesting things, different things, moments that make you go "ahh", still others that make you sit up and feel. The job of any artist, I suppose, is first truth in service of art, but the talent and majesty lie in the ability for it to also transcend the personal impulses that created it into something humanly universal. Those are amongst the most fulfilling moments as an artist as well as the most humbling. It's a lot like baseball. You take a million swings to be able to occasionally get a big hit in the clutch.

This genie is colored a little differently than past visits. Years of war and uncertainty, the recent campus madness here in Virginia, and the incredible technological changes even since my last CD was finished near the end of 2004, all hang over and around all of us. It's a different world. We artists might like to think we live in a vacuum, but we don't anymore than anyone else (except perhaps politicians). And our reactions to those circumstances in turn will always color our work.

I find that while I am quickly remembering how to be a silly goofy kid with my two month old daughter, I also find that I simultaneously feel older, wearier of the relentless daily onslaught of bad news.

These are trying times, important and crucial times, and I feel it all at once. A traveling witness to historic changes on the American landscape, honored that writing, singing and recording these songs is my life's work as well as my livelihood, and at the same time I feel the weight of responsibility to give those times and these feelings vision and voice in a meaningful and lasting way. These are days that we will always remember, and likely will be remembered for a long time. I will do my best to share the best that I can offer, now more than ever.

And maybe tonight, in the stillness before the chaos and joy of creativity begins in the studio, a few restful moments sipping from that bottle. Here's to you, for making it possible.