Long Road

As a songwriter I have always felt that my songs need to be a piece of me, and if I cannot give a piece of myself to a song then I won’t write it. That piece for “Long Road” started in two places when I was doing a small run in Nashville for a week and on my commute back and forth to work everyday. It was during that week in Nashville especially that I realized how hard it was to constantly be gone from home, even if it was in pursuit of something I was passionate about, so that's where the song started. Since then though it has grown into an anthem, a love song and a promise: I’m coming home. To me this song is me telling my wife, and now my young daughter, that I may be out on the road now but I won't be forever and that I would rather be home with them. It’s crazy how now that I have a family my outlook has shifted, that desire to be out on the road playing music night after night is replaced by not wanting to miss the little things, like dinner, doctor’s appointments and bedtime routines. And the cool thing about a song like this is I wrote it for myself but now that it is out there in the world other people have shared what it means to them and it is so different, for example, I had a woman come up to me after a show and tell me that “Long Road” reminded her of her father, who was a cross-country truck driver, and how he was always doing his best to be home with his family. So to me, the song is a promise that no matter where I am, I am always gonna be home as soon as I can, but the beauty of music is that it might be something different to you and that is what it is all about. Also, I couldn’t help but to reference Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band’s “Turn the Page” (a quintessential anthem of the realities of life on the road) in the last pre-chorus.