For Linsay

This song is easier to discuss in terms of its musical composition than its lyrics. When I hit a creative rut, I often experiment with alternate tunings. For this track, I was inspired by the unique tunings Meg Duffy used on their *Hand Habits* album, *Fun House*. The tuning is so unusual that when I play it live, I either have to bring a separate guitar just for this song or spend quite a while retuning afterward.

“For Linsay” is dedicated to my old friend Linsay Sonner, who was part of YESTroupe with me when I was a teenager. YESTroupe was a youth theater group affiliated with the Landers Theater, a community theater in Springfield, Missouri, and it had a profound impact on my life. I remember the exhilaration of being accepted into the group—I learned the basics of improv and discovered the joy of spontaneous theater-making. But most importantly, I formed close friendships with a handful of people who loved to perform as much as I did. Linsay was one of the first people I met there. She was hilarious, audacious, and quick-witted, and I idolized her. She made all of us funnier just by making us try to keep up with her—a dynamic I've sought and been fortunate to find many times in improv since then. But I wouldn’t have known it was possible without Linsay and my YESTroupe friends.

When Linsay passed away last year, my old YESTroupe friend Jeremy Griffin called me, and we spent time reminiscing about that formative period in our lives.