We're on our final story-behind-the-love-song blog for our EP, Love is Gross (but it looks good on you). And it is barftastic. Mostly, because it involves our former roommate and longtime friend, Mike. You probably remember Mike from all of those incriminating stories we would tell you from our early R&T days. He's been with us since even before The Rough & Tumble, too, and has been featured as a top notch bass player on our early records, as well as on We Made Ourselves a Home When We Didn't Know.
Mike has always been a solid support and a good hang and a willing participant as the butt of our jokes. And then something really, really weird happened.
Mike fell in love.
Gross.
But you know what they say. You aren't losing a cranky New Englander bestie, you're gaining a much more cheerful pal who has a dopey look in his eyes on Instagram AND a fantastic, caring, exuberant new friend, Steph, to keep that cranky old friend of yours in check.
We knew Mike was in deep when he asked us early on in the pandemic to write a birthday song for Steph. Their plans had been to take a road trip to Philadelphia from their Long Island apartment and get the best Philly Cheesesteak in town. But March of 2020 put that right down the drain. So, instead, enter us, his weird former roommates who kept him up too late and got him up too early sometimes played practical jokes he didn't find all that funny to save the day.
When we wrote "When It's Over," we were still early on in the pandemic, when we thought it would just be for two weeks. Or maybe a month. Three months tops. The mood was dark. Hopeful, but dark. It was a song that came naturally from that place-- wishing we could do normal things in normal places, and making plans for all that we won't take for granted when we could again.
And also knowing that sort of gratitude is hard to maintain. We take advantage of it when we can, though. And we hoped this song would be a small place Mike & Steph could go to in order to uncover that gratitude, those well wishes, that hope.
It's the closing song to the record, a wistful, solemn tune packed with a sparkle of a future long history. One we wish for Mike & Steph, too, as they venture forward into a reopening world with all that ooey gooey love they have for each other.
Take a listen below, and then go get yourself the whole EP at our Bandcamp page. Celebrate the love of the people we wrote them for, the love of the people around you, and the love of your own person. Even-- and especially-- if that person is you. And when you're ready, when it's over, go out on the town and go do something wonderfully normal with them.
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