Today is the first day of our week-long trip to a cabin on Lake Champlain in Vermont. I was tired after the five-hour drive from New York but tonight I sat on the deck overlooking the lake and tried to work on some new songs. Across the lake a train began crawling noisily along the water’s edge in the darkness. I was frustrated at first as I was recording, but its haunted sounds put a melody in my fingers and I recorded it. It’s a scrappy, out of rhythm jam that I’ll probably never use but it fit the atmosphere of where I’m currently staying. At the end of the tune the rain started to come down hard so I retreated inside. The owner is an artist so I write this among her oil paintings. Bold colors and empty spaces, the lake has had its effect on her too.