[Intro]
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard this vessel. Please listen very carefully to the following safety announcements

[Spoken]
I know I'm not going to be doing myself any favors with this comparison, but
Leonard Cohen wrote 80 verses to "Hallelujah" before he settled on the final five
Sometimes
The results of our labor justify the lengths that we go to get there
This is not one of those times

I am so tired of this song cluttering up the worktable in my mind
But I am not yet ready for it to be gone

It was meant to be for my dad, in case that wasn't obvious
And that's how the problem began
Ever-eager as I am to fling every egg I can find into the closest basket I have to hand
I decided
That this song would be The Song, capital T capital S
That it would be where I digest all of those undesirable emotions all at once
And it felt healthy, even, at the time
To have somewhere to put them, somewhere they could be herded together, and ringfenced
And I dove into that process like I always do
Smug and confident that I would be able to hold my breath and reach the bottom and bring back something beautiful to show everyone
And it would be done
And I wouldn't have to think about this anymore
And I wouldn't have to feel like this anymore
But it's been two years now and I don't feel like I've come up for air
Once
Since the first demo
Which was written and recorded on my phone the morning before the funeral
And I was rewriting it in my head less than two hours later
During the funeral service
There is a theory for this
Or a term, rather
It's called dissociation
It's a coping mechanism
It's something that we do when we can't bring ourselves to look directly at the monster barreling out of the dark towards us

Here's another theory, actually
If- if-
If emotions can be boiled down to electrical signals bouncing around in the brain
Then it follows that they're a part of the natural world
And therefore have to obey the same laws as the natural world
And the first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed
It can only be transformed
And I barely fucking cried when my father died
Where are all of those emotions?
If they have not been destroyed then where have they gone?

"Receiver Of Wreck"
Is not just a song, I think
It's an external hard drive
For the feelings that I can't bear to have close to me
And it will be effective for as long as I keep working on it, I believe
As long as I keep coming back every few months to push my grief another metaphor deep until eventually even I start to forget
What I walked up into the field that January morning to bury

This is something I have to decide
That I can write, and rewrite, and re-re-re-rewrite
But the song is never gonna feel complete
One day I'm just gonna have to stop
But even then I can't just put my guitar down and walk away
I'm in
Far too deep for that

I don't think I get to feel like it's done
Truly
Until this song and everything locked inside it has been released
And maybe then
Maybe
I can start the actual process of
Gathering up those emotions and finding a place for them
In me, this time
Where they belong