Although there are a number of my songs by me which are closest to my heart, mostly by dint of coming from my gut, there is only one which I tend to listen to more than twice or thrice in a row – being the one embedded here. I don't even know why I like it. It's obviously about a woman, but it's not necessarily about that woman. Maybe it is, though. It's definitely a revisionist take on a real-life scenario, which I'll leave at that. Musically, it's reminiscent of some '60s pop song, but I don't know which. After I'd finished it, it sounded to me like Radiohead and Blondie collaborating on a version of a hypothetical Roky Erickson song – but such comparisons are as arbitrary as one's frame of reference. I had to mix this a few times before it came out right – though the drums in the beginning might be too loud, but some people like that.
I suppose that what I like about this song ("song" comprising the arrangement and production, along with composition and performance) is the feeling of it. Since I was a kid, I've always responded to the way that chords and melodies felt inside me, and when I realize that I'm able to project that outward, I feel artistically successful. I have written some songs entirely by "feel," while I'm out walking in public, and after I get home I translate that feel into chords and melody. In French, sentir is the verb "to hear," and se sentir is the reflexive verb "to feel (emotion)." My song "Devour You" began with my feeling the drum-beat in my mind, which suggested to me the motions of a tortoise walking, which evoked the lyrical element of a turtle "comin' outa my shell" (not "comin' out o' Michelle"), and it developed from there. "Devour You" is another of my songs that I like to listen to more than once at a time; probably because it had originated from a feeling.
I sent "The Day Flows" to the woman who'd inspired it, and she told me that she was glad that I told her that it was about her, because she had wanted it to be about her. I wasn't hoping for her to fall in love with me or anything. We can't even be friends, anymore. It doesn't matter now – that life experience distilled itself into a musical experience with a feeling that I am happy to live with.