Demonstration Tapes: Foregone

Returning to Springville Hill

Here’s a home demo I made for the song “Foregone,” a song that would be destined for the b-side bin (or the outtake EP bin) after we’d assembled all the songs that would become The King Is Dead. I haven’t revisited it in a long time — I’d forgotten that I rewrote a verse and axed another. It was a much longer, stretchier song in its demo form. Listening to it now, I am recalled to the place I was in when I was writing it: a new transplant to a house in the woods up off of Springville road in NW Portland, settling into the strange and complicated life of being a dad, and feeling a flush of song inspiration. It’s pretty heart-on-the-sleeve kind of stuff. I maybe wanted to tamp that down after living with it for a bit, which might’ve been why I changed so much. At the end of the day, though, even the edits couldn’t save it from its fate. It’s sweet to listen to it now; I wish I’d kept it as is, maybe even *added* another verse.