A story about Cargo Pants
My new single is streaming everywhere today.
I wrote Cargo Pants on trash day. It was Tuesday.
At the time I was living on top of an actual mountain, so when I found myself with a pair of cargo pants that I wanted nothing to do with (listen to the song if this doesn’t make sense to you), I had to walk them half a mile down a steep hill to the trash bins, thinking all the worst thoughts and feeling all the worst feelings amidst the backdrop of outrageously beautiful panoramic views.
The view was perfect. My life wasn’t. And I just remember the juxtaposition of those two things being pretty weird. Life up there made you feel small and removed, which is something I needed for a while. But then it went too far. This is a dramatic way of putting it, but I feel a little bit like I was looking at too many sunsets, and maybe not enough at my life. Ignoring big things.
Throwing away the cargo pants didn’t give me the satisfaction I thought it would (shocker). It was actually just another way of looking away, of momentarily avoiding reality, hoping it’s all a dream. What throwing them away did do was show me that it’s not possible to throw away your pain, not possible to throw away reality, and maybe most crucially, it’s not possible to throw away your love for someone either. We have to face it all and find a way forward that makes sense to us.
I don’t always feel like our culture encourages us to do that. It’s way too easy to numb out and discard people when things get tough. Cargo Pants sort of takes place in that moment when you’re so wounded you want to do that. That moment you realize how messy love can be and you have no clue how you’re going to move forward from where you are.
At the end of this song I always see myself looking down a long road, wondering if I’m going to take it.
Of course I know I did.
