Words by Kyle McAllister of Apology Wars

I think this is the first song I’ve written that I felt like I had to write. For good or for ill, it means something important to me. I think it pulls back the curtain of who I am, which is what I believe good art does. It’s not apologizing and it’s not proselytizing. Instead, it’s a story of vulnerability with a specific emotion attached.

This song is about a phone call, a 90 mile drive, a plastic bag, a rubber band, and a great many other things I can’t formally account for or don’t want to. But mostly, it’s about rage. It’s about worry, and about guilt, and about guilt at feeling rage, or worry at feeling guilt. Or any other combination of those emotions chasing each other through the rainswept shadows cast by the headlights of a 1995 Chevy truck parked haphazardly in front of a shitty apartment building while I scream at my friend not to do it, I would be so fucking mad.

And now instead of just a traumatic memory I thought of intermittently in the ten years since, it gets to be a song. I get to experience this as a song now instead of a sinking feeling in my gut, and I hope it reaches you the same.

Photos by Christopher Butcher