LYRICS:  Tears flow like a waterfall, drown the pain in alcohol, there’s nothing left to fear at all, because there’s nothing left to feel at all, the cliffs will break my lengthy fall.  Oh, here I come.

INTERPRETATION:  “Dying is an art, like everything else… I do it exceptionally well.”  ~Sylvia Plath

Waterfall is my minimalist variant of a murder ballad.

INSPIRATION:  For all its moody melodrama, Waterfall was initially motivated by a tongue-in-cheek jest.  While playing a solo gig some years ago, an audience member commented on how depressing my songs are.  I responded by saying that I don’t intentionally set out to write sad songs, they just usually end up that way.  The audience member then quipped, “Well then, I’d hate to hear how depressing your intentionally-written sad songs would be!”  I laughed, & told the audience that I was now determined to write a song solely predicated on gratuitous sadness.

INSIGHT:  Like many of Shadowlands’ more minimal compositions, Waterfall was tracked live with one room mic.  Matt & I wanted something of a claustrophobic tone for this particular recording.  We set the gain level a bit higher than usual, & positioned the mic up against the wall in close proximity to myself so that the slap-back reverb is naturally present (under the heavily saturated reverb from post production).  Minimal chord voicings are again used throughout the song to underscore dissonance & dysphoria, which is most prevalent during the outro section.