Soon after I finished The ring cycle, I realized that I was holding on to the past a bit too much. And when I allowed myself to consider the implication of the scene and not the scene itself, I had the answer to my problem. The quote from Whitman would simply be a means, not an end. And then the form took shape:

The song cycle will be called “We Two Boys.” The individual pieces, still taking shape, should tell a story, but tell it abstractly. And not the story of my memory. It will be a story of a relationship, a passionate relationship, with both the love and the hurt. Some titles I’m working with include “Together Clinging”, “Fulfilling our Foray”, “Elbows Stretching, Fingers Clutching”, “Infidelity”, and “Down to the Filter”.

The themes are known to us all–desire, jealousy, regret, love…. And they are important to me because it isn’t only the past that feels these things, I feel them all the time. They inform any relationship, again and again. And now they will inform my songs.