Who sees through it? Why, you do, Mr. Bridger.

I can't make a habit of this, but today we're going to resurrect an old demo.

And the reason for the summoning is because this demo represents one of those peculiar occasions where you get something right the first time and then...not quite so much on subsequent tries.

When I was writing what ended up as "Bridger," I came up with some riffs that sounded kind of wide open and made me think of what it must have been like to see America in the days before your eyes got tripped up by urban sprawl. Naturally, I started thinking about cowboys and the like, but then I started focusing on the idea of exploration, of being in absolutely virgin country. After honing in on that theme, Jim Bridger seemed a good character to express such a sentiment through.

As concerns the recording of this here song, I asked Jake to try something "Western." Right there on the spot, he worked some kind of hoodoo and produced this amazing, smoky-toned guitar sound that felt like all the good stuff about the Early American experience wrapped up in a freakin' beaver pelt for your convenience. This track stands as one of my favorite musical memories of this band...

We couldn't quite pull off that wonderful tone again when we recorded our EP; we didn't have a lot of time budgeted for tracking and compromises end up being made in time-crunch situations.

Oh well; enjoy the tune, friends. Have a good weekend.