Songfacts®:

• In our interview with Seattle songwriter, Shelby Earl, it was revealed "Made of Sand" is about being inappropriately revered by another: "The words were written after I dated someone who seemed to put me on a pedestal and who lost a lot of himself in the process. It was an odd experience because he was also a deeply religious person and I couldn't make sense of him glorifying me when that devotion should have been aimed at his god. That's why I use so many religiously charged words and phrases in the song. I wanted to paint a picture of one person deifying another while the one being deified knows they are too flawed to stand up under such immense pressure and expectation. You cannot make another person your emotional rock. If you try they will fail you, they will become sand, and you will be left without a foundation in the end."
• Shelby Earl told us the song attained another layer of meaning after her friend and collaborator, Katie Freeze, commented that the lyrics reminded her of an obsessive ex: "...there is an extra level of spooky in the recording because my best friend, longtime collaborator and old band-mate, Katie Freeze, who wrote the music to this song, had just emerged from awful experience with a stalker. She was totally freaked out when she read the lyrics because they were so reminiscent of the creepy dude's obsessive behavior toward her. She brought that energy to the music and instrumentation and once you know that part of the story it's REALLY chilling to listen to!"
• "Made of Sand" features on Shelby Earl's debut LP, Burn the Boats. Earl started to write the record in 2009, after she walked out of her corporate job in the music industry in favor of a waitress gig at a local restaurant.