My producer and longtime collaborator Thomas Greene created an instrumental demo that he titled “Underwater”. The name felt fitting; there was something ominous and foreboding about the music, particularly with the low, droning bass that painted images of a sea monster lurking just below calm waters, waiting to attack a passing ship. I wanted a lyric to match that sense of peace before the chaos.

I chose to write about the anticipation of dreadful news that comes upon receiving phone calls from family or friends whom I rarely hear from. My imagination always seems to go to the worst possible places (my shrink calls this a defense mechanism in order to maintain the illusion of control). I’ve gotten a handful of these inauspicious calls in my life, but never any that ended up warranting the amount of unease they’d created in me.

 Eerily enough, just a few days after finishing the lyric I finally got one that did, as the call pertained to a devastating event in my family.

I think this is why Jack Johnson writes songs about sunsets and pancakes.

- TJW