Despite having played in dozens of bands and having written/recorded over seventy-five songs in the last decade, I’ve never been asked to write a song for a specific project…until Ryan. I was a bit nervous at first and wasn’t sure I’d be able to write a song for his project because songwriting has, for me, always been an organic experience. As such, my songs have typically been very personally motivated and directly related to my own need for cathartic artistic expression. And even though I spent a decade in the Utah County punk scene and am a fan of many politically focused punk bands, I’ve never been able to honestly write a political song myself. It’s just not in my nature. So instead of focusing on the political satire of Ryan’s book, I decided to focus on the ‘time-travel-to-fix-the-future’ concept…because, well...who hasn't wanted to go back in time and fix the mistakes they've made, right? And I've made plenty.

Musically, I wanted the song to represent the ‘butterfly effect’ that is often associated with time travel. To achieve this, I wanted to begin in one genre and end in a completely different genre. So, I started with music that was mellow and ended with something that was aggressive and heavy. I’d describe the first half of the song as being inspired by The Frames, Frightened Rabbit, Mumford and Sons, The Swell Season; and the second part of the song as being inspired by In Flames, Soilwork, Disarmonia Mundi, Thrice. The contrast, to me, is fun. It's something that I've always wanted to do because I listen to a lot of mellow folk/indie rock and a lot of punk/metal/death metal. And I've written songs over the years within both genres, but I've never attempted to combine them (to this degree) in one song. They makes me smile when I go to sleep at night.

Lyrically, the song is very much an honest expression of my own desire to fix the past. I wrote the lyrics to the first verse, which plays on the 'home is where the heart is' idiom, in one of my notebooks several months before Ryan asked me to write this song. I wasn't intending it to become lyrics to a song, but rather, I was just expressing a thought that I'd been dwelling on....and to even begin to explain it all would require a book…which is currently a work in progress (self-plug time: www.jephpreece.com/iamicarus/index.html). The title is ‘I Am Icarus.’ It’s a memoir/theme album based on my experience getting married, becoming a step-father to three amazing kids, and ultimately going through a divorce and the aftermath. (Yes, like Ryan’s book, my book will also include a soundtrack…though, each song will be recorded by me and will correlate directly to the chapters of the memoir. ‘Lost in a Hole’ is not likely going to be added to the soundtrack but is very much related to the experiences therein.)