“‘Living Rooms’ was a song that was around as an instrumental idea that James Brangle brought in. It sat for a good while with no words. One Fourth of July we were all at his house and James and I and my wife were out by these railroad track that run past his backyard. There is a small, creepy tunnel that runs beneath the tracks. At the time, I was really attracted to such things—remnants of an old Murakami kick, I think. I was sort of kneeling down and crawling out of it when I fell in the tall grass and split my face on a broken flower pot. Emergency room trip and several weeks of explaining the bandages. Goose-egg bump. The words to this one, and a lot of weird spoken word over noisy organ music, came after it. I think I had in my mind the idea after it happened that the tunnel aimed back out into some weird antipode where I now had this big scar down my face, and in every way, I did.”
