TheyGotMyDickMessage

Dan, settle in. This might take a while. I've followed your career since soon after Postcards came out in Canada. I used to have XM, and The Verge did right by me, devoting 7 minutes to "So Much For Everyone". I feel like I've grown up with your career.

I'm from central Virginia, and the year spanning 2012/2013 was amazing for me, because I got to see all my bucket list bands I thought I'd never get to. You were one of them, playing a solo opening act in Richmond. I had Sufjan that year, also in Richmond, and Sigur Rós. Man...

Anyway, the day after Sigur Rós, my last bucket list show, I ended up going to the emergency room in excruciating pain and being diagnosed with cancer. I went through a battle from March 2013 to May 2014, and during that time, my wife left. Actually, only a week into it. Now, I don't miss her, but she got away with my Nice, Nice LP with the signed set list from that Richmond show folded inside, and I miss the hell out of that.

If you're still with me this far, I haven't even gotten to the question I have. That was just my story. My question: You've always been very passionate and candid in your songwriting (e.g.,"I can hear the eyebrows raise when I start singing..."), and I've always connected to that. But there is something, and maybe it's just my interpretation, but there's something that has always felt particularly intimate about "Basket." It felt even more relatable as I was living what might have been my last days in a hospital bed, but well before that, the song has always stood out to me. Are you up to discussing where that song came from, maybe to shed some light on why it drills straight to my soul every time I hear it?

Sorry for the novella. I hope I get another chance to grab a set list and perhaps to buy you and Blacksmith all a round.

Cheers, G

*edit: Yes, I am done with cancer now. A year clean! And I've made a new bucket list that's a lot less attainable. It has a lot more specific conditions, just to be sure.

Wow. Yes. Thank you, Dan. You're a trooper on getting through questions. Thank you for taking the time and generally just sharing so much of you for the enrichment and entertainment of so many of us.