The Loss
I wrote “The Loss” in the summer of 2007, when everything in my life felt like it was falling apart.
I was having deep problems with my other business and losing an enormous amount of money. At the same time, one of my beloved cats had just died, and I can remember just staring into this seemingly endless abyss of incredible loss in my life—thinking that I could scream, pray, beg—and still the loss would remain, immutable.
Even if I could somehow reverse it all, it would only be temporary, because in the end, every loss we suffer is merely a premonition leading to that final moment where our very life is lost. And in that moment came the guarantee of losing everyone and everything I ever loved.
In the song, I sing about all the ways I tried to fight this, “…ah but in the end, I could not defend…against he loss”. And in the final verse, “…I begged to be excused at any cost, but it’s all sour grapes, cause none of us escapes, from the loss”.
The song is bare and open in many places, leaving little to hide behind — just the space between the notes, and the emotions I was feeling in that moment. I think that’s what makes it so soulful and honest.
The outro ended up being exactly what I was hoping for. My engineer, co-producer, and sometimes-guitarist Mike Rorick played a brilliant guitar solo, except I actually thought someone else had played it. Lol! We had been working with nationally known guitarist Kenny Hawkins — whose credits are a mile long — including tracks on Guitar Hero. So, I thought he had played it, because it sounded so great. Mike finally told me he had played it, and it remains my favorite lead guitar solo of all my songs. That’s saying something, considering the many other great solos on my other tracks, played by Kenny Hawkins, Buffalo, NY guitarist Frank Grizanti, and some incredible players in Nashville.
“The Loss” remains one of my favorite songs on any of my albums.
Take a listen through… I hope you like it.
The Loss
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