Jan 2021: Happy New Year. Here's to possibility.

👆🏼a revamped syd-music.com

I spent most of 2020 taking a year off from the music business. It became clear as we locked down and closed up that I would be fighting an upstream battle to try to force the music business to come to me and after 20 years at it, a break was well-earned.

I have found a great sense of connection with my past and our shared paths during the last year through a few very simple things:

• Someone asking me to write out the lyrics to "Here's A Love Song" for a wedding anniversary (something I'm happy to do anytime, just ask)
• Each week I would notice "Back Home" getting lots and LOTS of spins on Apple Music in one part of West Chester, PA - who are you?
• We listened to a lot of music in the house. The algorithm occasionally brought up projects and songs from the past 20 years of music-making on our HomePod -- and each time I'd get to tell my girls that I knew the person singing ("That's Uncle Shane singing!" in The Pullmen is always good for a wide-eyed look) or that it was me playing the drums.

Much as it was for me growing up inside the music business, they too are seeing the possibility of a life in and around art -- sometimes asking me questions that make us laugh - like if I know Bob (Marley) or John (Lennon) - but filling me with pride that they see knowing those two legends of music as much a plausible possibility as anything else.

Possibility. Well. We have to pause there. The obvious abundance or utter lack of possibility in a human life and the multitude of paths available or not to our fellow human beings has been highlighted in stark terms this year. Sometimes in very personal ways.

That a person's sense of security and possibility could be determined so purely on the random luck of their birth is an unforgivable inequity. Let's change that.

My time off taught me that I would be sad to leave the music business behind; I'd feel there was more to say if I didn't come back to it. But it also helped me appreciate what I have done more deeply. And appreciate all of you. There's a lot of you on this mailing list - many of whom signed up on a clipboard passed around a college cafeteria at the beginning of this century. That's as profound as it is sort of absurd and I'm deeply appreciative.

I also couldn't help but notice that I hadn't given my work and my story a proper home.

With the help of some friends and some great photographers, I finally have that home - you can visit the revamped syd-music.com and maybe, as I have done, wonder if there are just a few too many pictures of me or drop a digital needle on one of the playlists there.

A special word of appreciation for the bio that Zac Clark wrote. Speaking of which...

🎥 the video to accompany this song is the best user experience
💿 or listen to it without the video

Last year, Zac Clark stopped by our house before...everything..and we spent a week writing songs together.

We managed to strike a balance of fierce focus and absolute letting go. In other words, we were able to work for a week because we didn't stay up til 4am the first night chasing or hours beating ourselves up because an idea wouldn't bend to our will. We showed up for the work and for each other. Sometimes it flowed, sometimes it didn't.

Zac and I are talkers (see: this email) and we started most days with a walk. He is usually reading something philosophical and with him, even ordering a burger can trigger a philosophical exposition. So I react, I reflect, and every once in a while, he pulls out his notebook and gets a glimmer in his eye.

After the walk, we'd move into the studio where we agree to have stronger opinions and firmer stances than we might outside the studio. Inside the room, we grant each other the right to be "certain", because outside the room you know nothing is. It allows me the freedom to say "This is definitely the chorus" when we both know that's not something you can know for sure.

A theme of our work had been the Holy and the Shit. The dirt and the sugar.

A theme of Zac's life has to do with beard and hair management.

Somehow both came together in the right way on this one.

He took the song we wrote and the drum loop I laid down and built a beautiful recording out of it. Sam Smith helped bring it over the finish line musically and provided the artwork while the great Joe Pisapia mixed it perfectly.

There are more songs to come from this collaboration, but another theme of this year: even if there weren't more songs, I'm glad this one is out there.