April 25, 2025 • 26 mins
Andrew Osenga spent nine years chasing the right words for a song that refused to be finished. From his days with The Normals to his time in Caedmon’s Call, the chorus lingered—waiting for the right moment. That moment came through deep personal loss, shaping Hold the Light into a powerful reflection on grief, community, and persistence in songwriting.
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S1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Deepest Cut, a podcast about the movement
from painful experiences to meaningful music. I'm your host, Matt Conner.
There are moments when the words won't come. Andrew Osenga
waited nine years for them, going as far back as
(00:24):
his days as the frontman for the rock band The Normals.
Osenga held on to a special refrain and riff that
begged to be fleshed out into a complete song. Unfortunately,
despite his best efforts over several years and dozens of iterations,
nothing felt right and the song sat incomplete. During that time,
Osenga stayed plenty busy as a songwriter, producer, musician and performer.
(00:47):
The normals came and went and the chorus was never used.
Solo albums were released, and still the song sat unfinished
as Osenga joined Caedmon's Call. Even they decided against recording
it at first. After yet another version of the track
was submitted, entirely new songs were constructed around that chorus,
only to be discarded when it was time to make
(01:08):
firm studio decisions. But then came the deep personal loss
of some of Usinger's closest friends. Within a small group
that had become its own family life, shared leads to lost,
shared and Osenga sat with him in their grief and sorrow.
Now we'll let him tell you the story. But there
was good reason that chorus bothered him for so long
(01:28):
when it was finally time to tell this story. The
muse was ready. The song Hold the Light was born
and the result speaks for itself. Now you can hear
the first version of the song on Kadmon's Calls album overdressed.
They did eventually record it, but Usinger's forthcoming release, also
named Hold the Light, features unplugged takes of his favorite
(01:49):
solo songs, and this version is really incredible in my opinion.
On this episode of The Deepest Cut, we spoke with
Andrew Osenga about the craft of writing personal songs, what
it's like to sit down with the same chorus again
and again and again and again, and the snapshots of
beauty that come when community enters into suffering together. Here's
(02:10):
our conversation with Andrew Osenga. Hello and welcome back to
The Deepest Cut. My name is Matt Conner, and I'm
(02:31):
your host, my good friend, excellent guitarist Andy Osenga. How
are you today?
S2 (02:38):
I'm doing all right. Thanks, man. Good to see you.
S1 (02:40):
I was just even stumbling over, like, how to properly
introduce you. Because I feel like people know you from
being musically involved with pretty much everything. I is like, what?
Like what do you. What do you normally say? Right?
You have your own music, but also everyone's seen you
on stage with so many people like you. And I
were just talking about your years with like, Steven Curtis
(03:01):
Chapman and different bands. Behold the Lamb of God tour.
Like just all over the place.
S2 (03:06):
Yeah. My my kids sometimes ask me, dad, what do
you do? And I'm like, I don't know. It's just
whatever's whatever's in front of me. However, whoever I can
serve in the moment and if I can be playing
guitar while I serve people, that's a bonus. You know.
S1 (03:21):
Obviously we're talking about maybe some some darker themes or
things here. Um, after all, the deepest cut is all
about asking artists about the most painful or difficult songs
they've written. For some artists, that means just the ones
that they're at least willing to discuss publicly, and maybe
not the ones all the time. You chose a song
called Hold the Light, and I want to. I want
(03:43):
to get to that in just a second. But first
of all, I'd love to sort of begin with the
process for you in the first place of of when
you know, your when you realize you're going to write
something to process or document a, um, a moment like this,
a moment where you're wrestling with something where you're just
in a darker place. Doubt, pain, whatever it is. Is
(04:05):
there a different process for you to sort out a
song like that than maybe others is? Do you have
even like, do you have even a a process that
you've found? Like typically when I'm dealing with these darker things,
I tend to do this.
S2 (04:20):
Oh, gosh. I don't think there's a process. I mean,
I think usually you kind of write those going, well,
this might not be for anybody else, you know. Um,
often you're writing those just because you have to, you know,
or you're writing them in my I would say this
in my, like earlier in my career or when when
(04:41):
I was like in my early 20s, I wrote a
lot just because I was writing a lot. Like I
wrote 150 songs a year when I was 22, you know,
like I just wrote every minute of every day. Now
that I'm, you know, 45, like, I don't write that
many songs, like, um, I don't have the time or
(05:02):
the or the energy. It's like, I, I, I write
now more for a project like, oh, I have an
idea for a project, I want to write an album
about this, or I'm working on this project. So I
need to write songs for this. So I'm generally writing
kind of with a goal in mind. So I'm putting
(05:22):
that energy kind of more specifically towards something. So I
still might write those songs, but they're more, you know,
if there's something really personal, it's like, I know it's
not going to be for anybody. Um, or it's like, oh,
I'm going to couch this very specifically for, you know, in,
(05:44):
in a way that I can I can use it
to serve this project. So like I made a record
in 2017, 2018 that was kind of a darker record
called The Painted Desert. That was like kind of an
exploration of like grief and loss. And it's got a
lot of darker songs, you know, and it was because
I was processing a lot of those kinds of things
(06:04):
and sort of gave myself permission to sort of write
all those songs, and with the understanding that sometimes people
need those songs, sometimes you can write those songs and
it's it's like, okay, as the audience, my counselor and
my therapist, because I don't need to be doing that.
And that's kind of obnoxious sometimes and can make it
an awkward relationship and maybe an imbalanced relationship. And like,
(06:28):
I don't need to be sharing. Some of these stories
are not for everybody. These stories are for me and
my friends, or me and my wife or me and
my counselor, or me and my pastor, me and my whoever.
But then there's other times like, this story is worth sharing,
because I think these stories told this certain way might
help other people understand their story. So you're writing this
(06:50):
with the goal of other people being able to use
it as a tool to process, to grieve, to use
in their own way, giving people language for their own,
their own stories. And so that's the thing I didn't
I didn't think about in my early 20s, you know,
but now I understand sort of I think about it
differently now.
S1 (07:09):
Have you miscalculated that before?
S2 (07:11):
Oh, so I guess that's part of it is because I've, I've,
I've put myself in awkward situations and going like, I
wish I hadn't said that. I, I've shared too much
and I've also hurt people by being like, oh, I
told somebody's story and it was not my story to tell.
Just I wish, I, I wish I had kept that
part of my life for me, that was not for everybody,
(07:34):
or I could have told it in a way that
would have been useful for other people, but kept it,
kept the things I needed to be safe. Safe. You know,
I often see young artists doing that. Um, it's a
big trend in pop music right now to sort of overshare.
And then and then you see pop artists being like,
leave me alone. Don't talk to me. Don't ask me
(07:54):
these awkward questions like, well, you did really talk about
these super personal things, and then you're telling people not
to ask about it. It's like, well, you did kind
of ask it and then but I get it. I
understand why they're asking, because you kind of ask people
to ask and it's it's an awkward thing. So when
I get to know that, I get to be often
in that situation as sort of a guide for younger artists, uh,
(08:20):
I often try to help people be like, hey, let's
let's think through what this is going to look like
two years from now when, you know, 100,000 people have
heard this song, what are they going to want to
ask you about? Is this are you sure this is
how you want to phrase this? And we've rewritten a
lot of verses.
S1 (08:35):
Hey, you mentioned The Painted Desert. I was a little
surprised that your song selection went back to a Cadmeans album,
and obviously you're coming out with a new version of
this song, like an acoustic version, correct?
S2 (08:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
S1 (08:49):
I guess I just wondered, like, no consideration of a
song on the Painted Desert. What, like what made this
song the one you chose over? Maybe some others that
I guess I would have thought was more obvious.
S2 (09:01):
Well, it's I think, you know, maybe it's the way
you phrased the question was like the maybe the song
that was harder to write and the Painted Desert record.
I mean, I worked really hard on writing those songs,
but those songs did not feel difficult to write. I mean,
I worked hard on crafting them, but they came pretty naturally.
S1 (09:21):
Whereas Hold the Light did not.
S2 (09:22):
Hold the light did not. That song took years and
years and years and years and years and years and years.
And so that song is that's just like that has
always been the song that, like, plagued me as the
song that took forever to write. Um, and so the
second you asked the question, it's like, oh, it's not
even a, it's not even a, a second runner up.
(09:45):
As far as which song has been the hardest fought
song to write for me in my career? So those
may be maybe heavier songs or a darker, maybe thematically. Um,
but as far as just sheer pushing the boulder up
the mountain, not even a close second.
S1 (10:01):
Well, I kind of love that interpretation of this, but
you mentioned, like, it took me forever or a long, long,
long time. But like, how long do you can you
document how far back this song goes?
S2 (10:12):
Yeah, I could, I probably let's see, uh, if we
did the math on it, I think the so the
song came out on a Cadence call record called overdressed
that I think probably came out in. Let's see, I
left the band in 2009. I think that record maybe
came out in 2000, 2007, and I probably I wrote
(10:33):
that chorus in my apartment in probably 1998. And. Okay,
so I probably had that chorus for nine years and like,
exactly as it is, like, Will you hold the light
for me? And that riff doo doo doo doo doo
doo doo doo doo. It's four chords. It's that A minor, G, F,
D minor thing and like exactly as it is being like, ooh,
(10:56):
slow burn, big solo. Before I could play a guitar solo,
I was not a good guitar player. Um, like, I
was a bad guitar player when I was in the normals. Um,
I became I'm not saying like I'm a great guitar player, but, like,
I became a better guitar player over the years. I'm
now able to play a solo. I was not able
to play a guitar solo at the time. Now I
like that. I like to play the song because I
(11:16):
get to play a guitar solo. But I didn't know.
I didn't know what the song would be about, but
I was like, ooh, this chorus is cool. At the time,
I think I thought it was like, very Sarah McLaughlin.
And that was cool. In 1998, so had the chorus
and then so the normals made three records, and I
was the songwriter for that band, and I wrote a,
(11:38):
a verses in a, in a bridge to that chorus
that almost made it on the second normals record called
Coming to Life. But it wasn't good enough. But we
were all like, yes, it's not quite there. Didn't make
it on that record, kept fighting it, kept fighting it,
kept fighting it. Probably rewrote it 3 or 4 times.
Everything completely rewrote it 3 or 4 times. A completely
(12:00):
different song with that exact same chorus almost made it
onto the next record, but didn't because it wasn't there.
And then I made a couple solo records right as
I was joining Kevin's call, and almost put it on
every one of those records.
S1 (12:16):
Oh my goodness.
S2 (12:17):
I probably had. I probably wrote 20 different songs to
that chorus. And then when I joined Cadmans, we, they
made they were making a retrospective album. There was like
a best of that. They were adding two songs to
called Chronicles. And they asked me if I would write
a song for it. We submitted one song called Hold
the Light and one song called like a New Day
(12:41):
or something, I don't remember. Anyway, they cut the other one.
Whatever the one is, I can't remember and they cut
that one. They did not record Hold the Light because
it was not that good, but they were like, we
love that. Chorus.
S1 (12:52):
Wow.
S2 (12:52):
And it was always just me writing it. That's very
key to this. I was always the only person that
did this. I was always just by myself. And the
song was about many different things. Never fully knew quite
what it was about. It was never really about anything concrete.
I don't think it was ever about. It was always
kind of amorphous. I don't think it ever had like
a really, really concrete subject matter. But in 2000, I
(13:19):
got married. In 2002, we had our first daughter. I
have three daughters. We had our first daughter in 2005
and 2000. Later in 2005, we joined this small group
and this neighborhood small group met every Wednesday for 12
or 13 years. And that group got incredibly tight in
(13:43):
that group, like some of our parents died. There were
a bunch of kids were born. They were um, there
were all these things that we were carrying each other's
caring for each other, you know? Anyway, we were we
started working on this overdressed record at the same time
as a family in that group had been really struggling
(14:06):
with infertility, and they'd been struggling for years and years
trying to have a baby all of a sudden miraculously
got pregnant after like a decade of not being able
to have a kid. And I remember this woman came
in the door. I mean, they just found out, like
Wednesday night at like 630. Found out and came in
the door. We were the first people, she told. And
(14:27):
she just was like, we're pregnant. And we all were
just like.
S3 (14:31):
Oh my God.
S2 (14:32):
Freaked out. And then like, two months later, we were
the first people that she told that she lost the
baby and we were just devastated. And they've since like,
adopted three boys. I have this beautiful family. Beautiful story. Uh,
right after they lost that baby, our group went out
(14:52):
into their backyard where they still live. And we planted
a weeping willow. In their backyard down by this little
creek that runs through their backyard. And we stood around
it and just prayed for their family and just cried.
And it was. Just so sad. It was at that
same time we were working on this record, and I
just was like, I think that's what this song is about.
(15:13):
I think I've been holding on to this chorus forever
because that's it's for this. And so I wrote and
wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. I probably wrote
5 or 6, like word word document pages of lyrics
like far more than could fit on a in a song.
(15:34):
Randall Goodgame co-wrote most of the songs on that record
with me, which I really had never co-written before, much
until that point. But he and I co-wrote a lot
of cavemen songs together, and Randall was in that was
in that crew. We were also in that neighborhood group together.
So he also stood around that willow tree. So I
gave him that word document and was like, I've fought
(15:57):
this song for a decade. Will you just make this work?
And he took my words and just cut out everything like, uh, E.E.
Cummings style. Just cut out most of it, 90% of it,
and then handed it back to me and was like,
I think, here's your song. From there, we we kind
of tweaked it a little bit, and then together we
(16:18):
got back together and like wrote the bridge and the
bridge is stand around the willow weeping. We were praying
in the backyard. Ooh. And the chill of the night.
The friendship light reminded us.
S4 (16:33):
Who we are.
S2 (16:36):
And we're like, oh, that's it, that's the song. It's
such a Randall line. Uh, it's not a not a
slugs and bugs line, but it's like a it's an
old school Randall good game. The singer songwriter line.
S1 (16:46):
War and peace. Uh, Randall line yeah.
S2 (16:49):
So it's like, oh, not only was that song I
was holding on to that song for that moment. But like,
the song is about community. And I also needed, like
one of my best friends to literally do the thing.
The song's about to help me do write the song,
so like in that way, like, but yeah, anyway, it's
(17:12):
just like on every level that song is, uh, is
so both hard fought for me and just one of
my favorite songs, um, so special to me for all
those reasons. So I also can't sing it without thinking of,
you know, my friend Randall. Um, and of that community.
And because it's like, it's literally it is visceral to
(17:35):
me every time. It's never like those words never just
come out of my mouth without thinking. It's like every
time it's like I am with the people are still
I'm still in that room with those friends, and I
am still out in those backyard with those friends.
S1 (17:46):
What did those friends think of the song when they
heard it?
S2 (17:48):
Oh, they loved it. And yeah, had their blessing.
S1 (17:51):
And what that song. What is, um, like, once Caveman's
released it, you're playing it out or it becomes a
part of their catalog. Your catalog? Have you like the
response to that song in feedback to you? What's that
been like?
S2 (18:07):
Um, you know, it was it was fun. That's like
the one that was that was also fun. Is that, like,
Caveman's has their own history and legacy that I even
though I was in that band for seven years, like,
I'm not a part. I am not the Caveman's legacy.
You know, the Caveman's legacy is Cliff, Danielle and Derek.
And it should be like that's their that is who
(18:27):
Caveman's is. And if I was in their ten times,
as long as they were, it still was their band.
And um, it should be. But that was like the
one song that was like, oh yeah. But then there
was this other guy and he had that one song
that was like, that was his one kind of mark
that became kind of like a moment in the show
that people would ask for that people kind of remembered
(18:49):
that like, oh yeah, that was his. That was kind
of like my my little footnote in the history of
the band, which was sweet and and yeah, that I
still play in my shows and I just did this
acoustic record that'll come out in a few months. I
released it on vinyl this past, uh, Christmas time. So
it's only out on vinyl right now. You can you
(19:10):
can still get it. There's a few left, but it'll
come out on like Spotify and YouTube and stuff in
a few months. But it was for my birthday this
past year. Uh, I never really I don't usually celebrate
my birthday, um, but this past year, with my wife
being sick and all the different things we went through,
I was like, it was just been. It was such
an awful year. And I was like, I'm going to
celebrate my birthday. So I took a day off. I
(19:31):
just always worked kind of around the clock. I was like,
I'm going to not work on all all these other
people's music that I love and care about, and I'm
going to spend a day with my old songs. So
I booked a studio and had hired some of my
friends that do all this video work that we always
do for all these other projects that I work on.
And I spent a day with, um, a dozen of
(19:52):
my old songs of just my favorite songs that I've
played over my career. And, um, that was kind of
my birthday present to myself. And I didn't really. I
was like, I'm just going to do it. And if
I get any, maybe I'll just make it as I'll
just have it as like stuff for Instagram or something.
I don't know, but I'm just going to do it
because I really need this in my own life. And
it turned out really well. So we ended up making
(20:15):
a record of it, put it on vinyl and go
put it out as a record. So and I titled
the record Hold the Light. I just thought it would
be kind of fun. So that'll be the title of
the record. Um, so this will be kind of the
first time I have a version of that. It'll be
my first version of After the Last Tears Falls, which
is a song Andrew and I wrote together. Andrew Peterson,
so I've never had a version of that recorded either,
so it'll be fun to have some of those kind
(20:37):
of songs that are known for other people's records, but
that I was, you know, that I wrote. So anyway,
it's fun to it's fun to be a part of
other people's stories, and it'll be fun to kind of
get to tell my version of the story in a
little bit in that way.
S1 (20:51):
Oh, I love it, I love it. Well, this seems
like kind of the perfect time just to, like, we've
talked all about it. Um, why don't you just take
us into, like, let people hear the song for itself?
The acoustic version?
S2 (21:02):
Yeah. Oh, yeah. That'll be fun to play. Yeah. Randall,
if you listen to this, thank you for being my
friend and for helping me with this song. Uh, guys,
thanks for listening to this conversation. And here's my song,
Hold the Light.
S4 (21:30):
It's been a long year. Like a sleepless night. Jacob
wrestled the angel. I'm too tired to fight. Every Wednesday
for two years, we've met. I've showed you all my anger,
(21:51):
doubts and bitterness. There was no judgment in your eyes.
Just the silent peace of God. That felt so real
in you. Will you hold? The light. For me. Will
(22:18):
you hold? The light for me? Hey! Can I stay
up late? Cause I cannot sleep. Don't want to face
(22:42):
the quiet. It's just God and me. Cause I'm waiting
for the gavel. Handed me the sentence down. I don't
believe forgiveness or even repentance now. There was no judgment
in your eyes. Just the silent peace of God. It
(23:06):
felt so real in you. Will you hold? The light
for me? Will you hold? The light for me? I. Good. Morning.
(24:00):
I wanna feel redemption flowing through my veins. I wanna
see with clear eyes. The of lust and hate. I
want the war to be over. To know the good
guys won. I want love to hold me. To know
(24:21):
I'm not alone. Standing around a willow. Weeping. We were
praying in the backyard. And the chill of the night.
The friendship light reminded us who we are. Who we are.
(25:08):
Who we are. Who we are, who we are. Will
(26:20):
you hold the light? For me.
S1 (26:28):
You've been listening to the deepest cut part of the
Rabbit Room podcast network audio production and theme music by
Isaac Vining. Logo and identity work by Meg Cook. The
Deepest Cut was created and hosted by me, Matt Conner.
Thank you so much for listening.
Welcome to the Deepest Cut, a podcast about the movement
from painful experiences to meaningful music. I'm your host, Matt Conner.
There are moments when the words won't come. Andrew Osenga
waited nine years for them, going as far back as
(00:24):
his days as the frontman for the rock band The Normals.
Osenga held on to a special refrain and riff that
begged to be fleshed out into a complete song. Unfortunately,
despite his best efforts over several years and dozens of iterations,
nothing felt right and the song sat incomplete. During that time,
Osenga stayed plenty busy as a songwriter, producer, musician and performer.
(00:47):
The normals came and went and the chorus was never used.
Solo albums were released, and still the song sat unfinished
as Osenga joined Caedmon's Call. Even they decided against recording
it at first. After yet another version of the track
was submitted, entirely new songs were constructed around that chorus,
only to be discarded when it was time to make
(01:08):
firm studio decisions. But then came the deep personal loss
of some of Usinger's closest friends. Within a small group
that had become its own family life, shared leads to lost,
shared and Osenga sat with him in their grief and sorrow.
Now we'll let him tell you the story. But there
was good reason that chorus bothered him for so long
(01:28):
when it was finally time to tell this story. The
muse was ready. The song Hold the Light was born
and the result speaks for itself. Now you can hear
the first version of the song on Kadmon's Calls album overdressed.
They did eventually record it, but Usinger's forthcoming release, also
named Hold the Light, features unplugged takes of his favorite
(01:49):
solo songs, and this version is really incredible in my opinion.
On this episode of The Deepest Cut, we spoke with
Andrew Osenga about the craft of writing personal songs, what
it's like to sit down with the same chorus again
and again and again and again, and the snapshots of
beauty that come when community enters into suffering together. Here's
(02:10):
our conversation with Andrew Osenga. Hello and welcome back to
The Deepest Cut. My name is Matt Conner, and I'm
(02:31):
your host, my good friend, excellent guitarist Andy Osenga. How
are you today?
S2 (02:38):
I'm doing all right. Thanks, man. Good to see you.
S1 (02:40):
I was just even stumbling over, like, how to properly
introduce you. Because I feel like people know you from
being musically involved with pretty much everything. I is like, what?
Like what do you. What do you normally say? Right?
You have your own music, but also everyone's seen you
on stage with so many people like you. And I
were just talking about your years with like, Steven Curtis
(03:01):
Chapman and different bands. Behold the Lamb of God tour.
Like just all over the place.
S2 (03:06):
Yeah. My my kids sometimes ask me, dad, what do
you do? And I'm like, I don't know. It's just
whatever's whatever's in front of me. However, whoever I can
serve in the moment and if I can be playing
guitar while I serve people, that's a bonus. You know.
S1 (03:21):
Obviously we're talking about maybe some some darker themes or
things here. Um, after all, the deepest cut is all
about asking artists about the most painful or difficult songs
they've written. For some artists, that means just the ones
that they're at least willing to discuss publicly, and maybe
not the ones all the time. You chose a song
called Hold the Light, and I want to. I want
(03:43):
to get to that in just a second. But first
of all, I'd love to sort of begin with the
process for you in the first place of of when
you know, your when you realize you're going to write
something to process or document a, um, a moment like this,
a moment where you're wrestling with something where you're just
in a darker place. Doubt, pain, whatever it is. Is
(04:05):
there a different process for you to sort out a
song like that than maybe others is? Do you have
even like, do you have even a a process that
you've found? Like typically when I'm dealing with these darker things,
I tend to do this.
S2 (04:20):
Oh, gosh. I don't think there's a process. I mean,
I think usually you kind of write those going, well,
this might not be for anybody else, you know. Um,
often you're writing those just because you have to, you know,
or you're writing them in my I would say this
in my, like earlier in my career or when when
(04:41):
I was like in my early 20s, I wrote a
lot just because I was writing a lot. Like I
wrote 150 songs a year when I was 22, you know,
like I just wrote every minute of every day. Now
that I'm, you know, 45, like, I don't write that
many songs, like, um, I don't have the time or
(05:02):
the or the energy. It's like, I, I, I write
now more for a project like, oh, I have an
idea for a project, I want to write an album
about this, or I'm working on this project. So I
need to write songs for this. So I'm generally writing
kind of with a goal in mind. So I'm putting
(05:22):
that energy kind of more specifically towards something. So I
still might write those songs, but they're more, you know,
if there's something really personal, it's like, I know it's
not going to be for anybody. Um, or it's like, oh,
I'm going to couch this very specifically for, you know, in,
(05:44):
in a way that I can I can use it
to serve this project. So like I made a record
in 2017, 2018 that was kind of a darker record
called The Painted Desert. That was like kind of an
exploration of like grief and loss. And it's got a
lot of darker songs, you know, and it was because
I was processing a lot of those kinds of things
(06:04):
and sort of gave myself permission to sort of write
all those songs, and with the understanding that sometimes people
need those songs, sometimes you can write those songs and
it's it's like, okay, as the audience, my counselor and
my therapist, because I don't need to be doing that.
And that's kind of obnoxious sometimes and can make it
an awkward relationship and maybe an imbalanced relationship. And like,
(06:28):
I don't need to be sharing. Some of these stories
are not for everybody. These stories are for me and
my friends, or me and my wife or me and
my counselor, or me and my pastor, me and my whoever.
But then there's other times like, this story is worth sharing,
because I think these stories told this certain way might
help other people understand their story. So you're writing this
(06:50):
with the goal of other people being able to use
it as a tool to process, to grieve, to use
in their own way, giving people language for their own,
their own stories. And so that's the thing I didn't
I didn't think about in my early 20s, you know,
but now I understand sort of I think about it
differently now.
S1 (07:09):
Have you miscalculated that before?
S2 (07:11):
Oh, so I guess that's part of it is because I've, I've,
I've put myself in awkward situations and going like, I
wish I hadn't said that. I, I've shared too much
and I've also hurt people by being like, oh, I
told somebody's story and it was not my story to tell.
Just I wish, I, I wish I had kept that
part of my life for me, that was not for everybody,
(07:34):
or I could have told it in a way that
would have been useful for other people, but kept it,
kept the things I needed to be safe. Safe. You know,
I often see young artists doing that. Um, it's a
big trend in pop music right now to sort of overshare.
And then and then you see pop artists being like,
leave me alone. Don't talk to me. Don't ask me
(07:54):
these awkward questions like, well, you did really talk about
these super personal things, and then you're telling people not
to ask about it. It's like, well, you did kind
of ask it and then but I get it. I
understand why they're asking, because you kind of ask people
to ask and it's it's an awkward thing. So when
I get to know that, I get to be often
in that situation as sort of a guide for younger artists, uh,
(08:20):
I often try to help people be like, hey, let's
let's think through what this is going to look like
two years from now when, you know, 100,000 people have
heard this song, what are they going to want to
ask you about? Is this are you sure this is
how you want to phrase this? And we've rewritten a
lot of verses.
S1 (08:35):
Hey, you mentioned The Painted Desert. I was a little
surprised that your song selection went back to a Cadmeans album,
and obviously you're coming out with a new version of
this song, like an acoustic version, correct?
S2 (08:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
S1 (08:49):
I guess I just wondered, like, no consideration of a
song on the Painted Desert. What, like what made this
song the one you chose over? Maybe some others that
I guess I would have thought was more obvious.
S2 (09:01):
Well, it's I think, you know, maybe it's the way
you phrased the question was like the maybe the song
that was harder to write and the Painted Desert record.
I mean, I worked really hard on writing those songs,
but those songs did not feel difficult to write. I mean,
I worked hard on crafting them, but they came pretty naturally.
S1 (09:21):
Whereas Hold the Light did not.
S2 (09:22):
Hold the light did not. That song took years and
years and years and years and years and years and years.
And so that song is that's just like that has
always been the song that, like, plagued me as the
song that took forever to write. Um, and so the
second you asked the question, it's like, oh, it's not
even a, it's not even a, a second runner up.
(09:45):
As far as which song has been the hardest fought
song to write for me in my career? So those
may be maybe heavier songs or a darker, maybe thematically. Um,
but as far as just sheer pushing the boulder up
the mountain, not even a close second.
S1 (10:01):
Well, I kind of love that interpretation of this, but
you mentioned, like, it took me forever or a long, long,
long time. But like, how long do you can you
document how far back this song goes?
S2 (10:12):
Yeah, I could, I probably let's see, uh, if we
did the math on it, I think the so the
song came out on a Cadence call record called overdressed
that I think probably came out in. Let's see, I
left the band in 2009. I think that record maybe
came out in 2000, 2007, and I probably I wrote
(10:33):
that chorus in my apartment in probably 1998. And. Okay,
so I probably had that chorus for nine years and like,
exactly as it is, like, Will you hold the light
for me? And that riff doo doo doo doo doo
doo doo doo doo. It's four chords. It's that A minor, G, F,
D minor thing and like exactly as it is being like, ooh,
(10:56):
slow burn, big solo. Before I could play a guitar solo,
I was not a good guitar player. Um, like, I
was a bad guitar player when I was in the normals. Um,
I became I'm not saying like I'm a great guitar player, but, like,
I became a better guitar player over the years. I'm
now able to play a solo. I was not able
to play a guitar solo at the time. Now I
like that. I like to play the song because I
(11:16):
get to play a guitar solo. But I didn't know.
I didn't know what the song would be about, but
I was like, ooh, this chorus is cool. At the time,
I think I thought it was like, very Sarah McLaughlin.
And that was cool. In 1998, so had the chorus
and then so the normals made three records, and I
was the songwriter for that band, and I wrote a,
(11:38):
a verses in a, in a bridge to that chorus
that almost made it on the second normals record called
Coming to Life. But it wasn't good enough. But we
were all like, yes, it's not quite there. Didn't make
it on that record, kept fighting it, kept fighting it,
kept fighting it. Probably rewrote it 3 or 4 times.
Everything completely rewrote it 3 or 4 times. A completely
(12:00):
different song with that exact same chorus almost made it
onto the next record, but didn't because it wasn't there.
And then I made a couple solo records right as
I was joining Kevin's call, and almost put it on
every one of those records.
S1 (12:16):
Oh my goodness.
S2 (12:17):
I probably had. I probably wrote 20 different songs to
that chorus. And then when I joined Cadmans, we, they
made they were making a retrospective album. There was like
a best of that. They were adding two songs to
called Chronicles. And they asked me if I would write
a song for it. We submitted one song called Hold
the Light and one song called like a New Day
(12:41):
or something, I don't remember. Anyway, they cut the other one.
Whatever the one is, I can't remember and they cut
that one. They did not record Hold the Light because
it was not that good, but they were like, we
love that. Chorus.
S1 (12:52):
Wow.
S2 (12:52):
And it was always just me writing it. That's very
key to this. I was always the only person that
did this. I was always just by myself. And the
song was about many different things. Never fully knew quite
what it was about. It was never really about anything concrete.
I don't think it was ever about. It was always
kind of amorphous. I don't think it ever had like
a really, really concrete subject matter. But in 2000, I
(13:19):
got married. In 2002, we had our first daughter. I
have three daughters. We had our first daughter in 2005
and 2000. Later in 2005, we joined this small group
and this neighborhood small group met every Wednesday for 12
or 13 years. And that group got incredibly tight in
(13:43):
that group, like some of our parents died. There were
a bunch of kids were born. They were um, there
were all these things that we were carrying each other's
caring for each other, you know? Anyway, we were we
started working on this overdressed record at the same time
as a family in that group had been really struggling
(14:06):
with infertility, and they'd been struggling for years and years
trying to have a baby all of a sudden miraculously
got pregnant after like a decade of not being able
to have a kid. And I remember this woman came
in the door. I mean, they just found out, like
Wednesday night at like 630. Found out and came in
the door. We were the first people, she told. And
(14:27):
she just was like, we're pregnant. And we all were
just like.
S3 (14:31):
Oh my God.
S2 (14:32):
Freaked out. And then like, two months later, we were
the first people that she told that she lost the
baby and we were just devastated. And they've since like,
adopted three boys. I have this beautiful family. Beautiful story. Uh,
right after they lost that baby, our group went out
(14:52):
into their backyard where they still live. And we planted
a weeping willow. In their backyard down by this little
creek that runs through their backyard. And we stood around
it and just prayed for their family and just cried.
And it was. Just so sad. It was at that
same time we were working on this record, and I
just was like, I think that's what this song is about.
(15:13):
I think I've been holding on to this chorus forever
because that's it's for this. And so I wrote and
wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. I probably wrote
5 or 6, like word word document pages of lyrics
like far more than could fit on a in a song.
(15:34):
Randall Goodgame co-wrote most of the songs on that record
with me, which I really had never co-written before, much
until that point. But he and I co-wrote a lot
of cavemen songs together, and Randall was in that was
in that crew. We were also in that neighborhood group together.
So he also stood around that willow tree. So I
gave him that word document and was like, I've fought
(15:57):
this song for a decade. Will you just make this work?
And he took my words and just cut out everything like, uh, E.E.
Cummings style. Just cut out most of it, 90% of it,
and then handed it back to me and was like,
I think, here's your song. From there, we we kind
of tweaked it a little bit, and then together we
(16:18):
got back together and like wrote the bridge and the
bridge is stand around the willow weeping. We were praying
in the backyard. Ooh. And the chill of the night.
The friendship light reminded us.
S4 (16:33):
Who we are.
S2 (16:36):
And we're like, oh, that's it, that's the song. It's
such a Randall line. Uh, it's not a not a
slugs and bugs line, but it's like a it's an
old school Randall good game. The singer songwriter line.
S1 (16:46):
War and peace. Uh, Randall line yeah.
S2 (16:49):
So it's like, oh, not only was that song I
was holding on to that song for that moment. But like,
the song is about community. And I also needed, like
one of my best friends to literally do the thing.
The song's about to help me do write the song,
so like in that way, like, but yeah, anyway, it's
(17:12):
just like on every level that song is, uh, is
so both hard fought for me and just one of
my favorite songs, um, so special to me for all
those reasons. So I also can't sing it without thinking of,
you know, my friend Randall. Um, and of that community.
And because it's like, it's literally it is visceral to
(17:35):
me every time. It's never like those words never just
come out of my mouth without thinking. It's like every
time it's like I am with the people are still
I'm still in that room with those friends, and I
am still out in those backyard with those friends.
S1 (17:46):
What did those friends think of the song when they
heard it?
S2 (17:48):
Oh, they loved it. And yeah, had their blessing.
S1 (17:51):
And what that song. What is, um, like, once Caveman's
released it, you're playing it out or it becomes a
part of their catalog. Your catalog? Have you like the
response to that song in feedback to you? What's that
been like?
S2 (18:07):
Um, you know, it was it was fun. That's like
the one that was that was also fun. Is that, like,
Caveman's has their own history and legacy that I even
though I was in that band for seven years, like,
I'm not a part. I am not the Caveman's legacy.
You know, the Caveman's legacy is Cliff, Danielle and Derek.
And it should be like that's their that is who
(18:27):
Caveman's is. And if I was in their ten times,
as long as they were, it still was their band.
And um, it should be. But that was like the
one song that was like, oh yeah. But then there
was this other guy and he had that one song
that was like, that was his one kind of mark
that became kind of like a moment in the show
that people would ask for that people kind of remembered
(18:49):
that like, oh yeah, that was his. That was kind
of like my my little footnote in the history of
the band, which was sweet and and yeah, that I
still play in my shows and I just did this
acoustic record that'll come out in a few months. I
released it on vinyl this past, uh, Christmas time. So
it's only out on vinyl right now. You can you
(19:10):
can still get it. There's a few left, but it'll
come out on like Spotify and YouTube and stuff in
a few months. But it was for my birthday this
past year. Uh, I never really I don't usually celebrate
my birthday, um, but this past year, with my wife
being sick and all the different things we went through,
I was like, it was just been. It was such
an awful year. And I was like, I'm going to
celebrate my birthday. So I took a day off. I
(19:31):
just always worked kind of around the clock. I was like,
I'm going to not work on all all these other
people's music that I love and care about, and I'm
going to spend a day with my old songs. So
I booked a studio and had hired some of my
friends that do all this video work that we always
do for all these other projects that I work on.
And I spent a day with, um, a dozen of
(19:52):
my old songs of just my favorite songs that I've
played over my career. And, um, that was kind of
my birthday present to myself. And I didn't really. I
was like, I'm just going to do it. And if
I get any, maybe I'll just make it as I'll
just have it as like stuff for Instagram or something.
I don't know, but I'm just going to do it
because I really need this in my own life. And
it turned out really well. So we ended up making
(20:15):
a record of it, put it on vinyl and go
put it out as a record. So and I titled
the record Hold the Light. I just thought it would
be kind of fun. So that'll be the title of
the record. Um, so this will be kind of the
first time I have a version of that. It'll be
my first version of After the Last Tears Falls, which
is a song Andrew and I wrote together. Andrew Peterson,
so I've never had a version of that recorded either,
so it'll be fun to have some of those kind
(20:37):
of songs that are known for other people's records, but
that I was, you know, that I wrote. So anyway,
it's fun to it's fun to be a part of
other people's stories, and it'll be fun to kind of
get to tell my version of the story in a
little bit in that way.
S1 (20:51):
Oh, I love it, I love it. Well, this seems
like kind of the perfect time just to, like, we've
talked all about it. Um, why don't you just take
us into, like, let people hear the song for itself?
The acoustic version?
S2 (21:02):
Yeah. Oh, yeah. That'll be fun to play. Yeah. Randall,
if you listen to this, thank you for being my
friend and for helping me with this song. Uh, guys,
thanks for listening to this conversation. And here's my song,
Hold the Light.
S4 (21:30):
It's been a long year. Like a sleepless night. Jacob
wrestled the angel. I'm too tired to fight. Every Wednesday
for two years, we've met. I've showed you all my anger,
(21:51):
doubts and bitterness. There was no judgment in your eyes.
Just the silent peace of God. That felt so real
in you. Will you hold? The light. For me. Will
(22:18):
you hold? The light for me? Hey! Can I stay
up late? Cause I cannot sleep. Don't want to face
(22:42):
the quiet. It's just God and me. Cause I'm waiting
for the gavel. Handed me the sentence down. I don't
believe forgiveness or even repentance now. There was no judgment
in your eyes. Just the silent peace of God. It
(23:06):
felt so real in you. Will you hold? The light
for me? Will you hold? The light for me? I. Good. Morning.
(24:00):
I wanna feel redemption flowing through my veins. I wanna
see with clear eyes. The of lust and hate. I
want the war to be over. To know the good
guys won. I want love to hold me. To know
(24:21):
I'm not alone. Standing around a willow. Weeping. We were
praying in the backyard. And the chill of the night.
The friendship light reminded us who we are. Who we are.
(25:08):
Who we are. Who we are, who we are. Will
(26:20):
you hold the light? For me.
S1 (26:28):
You've been listening to the deepest cut part of the
Rabbit Room podcast network audio production and theme music by
Isaac Vining. Logo and identity work by Meg Cook. The
Deepest Cut was created and hosted by me, Matt Conner.
Thank you so much for listening.
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