The writing of the songs that became Heart Like a Levee started in a
hotel room in Washington DC in January of 2015 during a powerful
storm that darkened the East Coast. At that time I was feeling-more
acutely than I had ever felt before-wrenched apart by my
responsibilities to my family and to my music. Forgetting,
momentarily, that for me, each exists only with the other. How could I
forget? Though maybe my lapse was reasonable: I had just quit my job,
the most recent and last, in a series of dead-end gigs stretching back 20
years, with the vow that my children would understand their father as
a man in love with his world and the inventor of his own days. They
would be rare in that regard. And then-driven by monthly bills and
pure fear- I left for another tour, carrying a load of guilt that I could
just barely lift. But in that snowy hotel room I found the refrain that
became my compass: I was a dreamer, babe, when I set out on the
road; but did I say I could find my way home?
