Back to the Beginning Again

Album: Fading West (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • Guitarist Drew Shirley explained during a Fading West track-by-track on Spotify: "This was the first song that we learned and played live and it's a song about feeling motivation – a fresh motivation. New songs always do that for us as a band, we love new records, new songs, new live show, new stuff to play you guys… here's a song that gets us excited and motivated to play new music."
  • Switchfoot singer Jon Foreman explained the background to the song's lyrical content during a track-by-track on the Land Of Broken Hearts website: "There's a point during every tour where you begin to question the purpose of the journey," he said. "As you play the songs over and again and you start to wonder whether any song you've ever written is any good. You look back and all you can see are the mistakes. You look forward and all you can see is futility. You wonder whether your life has all been just one big mistake."

    "Maybe it's just me," Foreman continued. "But it happens to me every time. Like clockwork, two thirds of the way through the tour, I start to get depressed. Yes, I love what I do. Yes, It's the best job on the planet. And yes, I'm aware of how many folks would literally chop off a finger to have the day that I have: playing music for a living."

    "These are moments that drive me back to the ultimate source of life and love and joy- yes, the creator/re-creator himself," Foreman added. "'Bring me back, bring me back to the beginning again.' There is no joy to be found in my dead wells, my dried up fountains. I am stuck in the traffic of my dead end thoughts. I long to run free, with the colors that live outside the lines. But these dreams of freedom are mixed with hesitation; my fears and doubts began the day I was born. And yet, my hope is anchored on the other side of life and death with the colors that live outside of the lines."

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