Our "Valentine's Day" EP, Love is Gross, has been out for over a month. We hope you've enjoyed listening to it with your loved one (including yourself). As we've said, most of these songs were written as commissions for someone else's love story. It is an honor and pleasure to be let in on those inside jokes, those shorthand looks and phrases of another couples' ecosystem. And, because these couples are all incredibly generous people, they've agreed to give us a sneak peak-- a story behind the song.
We're starting this week with the top of the record-- "Remember When." This tune was written at the request of our pal Bryan for his husband Aaron for their anniversary. If you've been following the liner notes on any of our recent records, you'll know that Bryan and Aaron aren't strangers to us. They've been our parking spot home when we record in Nashville, our late night text buddies when a show turned crappy, and our backpacking pals during a global pandemic. They are some of the best friends we could ask for. So when we were asked to write a song for them... well, we didn't even know where to start. We've watched their relationship nearly from its beginning, as they did ours. They have a kindness and a sense of humor that is uniquely a hybrid of themselves. How do you narrow that down?
Luckily, Bryan is a great writer himself, and was able to give us verbal snapshots of their lives that got us writing right away-- and made us want to tag along. The result was an uproarious anthem of adventure that suits the love we've witnessed for years. But, we'll let him tell you more in his own words.
On a chilly night in April, almost six years ago, my now-husband and I stood before family and friends and vowed a laundry list of things to each other. I told him that for me, marriage is saying “yes” to that one person who thinks you’re funny when you’re afraid you’re just weird. Our assembled crew nodded in agreement as if to say, “yes, you’re lucky to have found that.”
Aaron is the person I most want to do everything with. And so, as much as we are able, we’ve made it a priority to do all the things, to see all the places, and to experience all the life… together. Once, while riding in a taxi between one place and another place, the driver asked where we were going and what we would be doing when we got there. When we told him about the thing we would be doing (I’ve since forgotten what it was… either a trail we were hiking or a ruin we were climbing or a motorcycle we were renting or…) he said “it must be great to have an adventure buddy to do things like that with.” When you are two men married to each other, “buddy” is sometimes the closest people can get to understanding your relationship -- but that’s fine. After all, the taxi driver wasn’t wrong. It really is nice to have an adventure buddy to do all the things with. We’ve hiked trails where waterfalls magically appeared on canyon walls during a downpour. We’ve swam with sharks and rode on elephants. We once slept in a tea plantation and will soon jump out of an airplane.
But we’ve also fallen asleep on the couch and watched bad tv and laughed with friends and told bad jokes and cleaned the kitchen and done all the other wonderfully mundane things people who love each other do together.
That’s why every time a story starts with “remember when,” my heart smiles. Wherever we are and whatever we’re doing (or not doing), it’s a great big world for wee bitty us.