This video is from my time at Taft Gardens in Ojai, California, in the last moments of my artist-in-residence. I was invited to come stay here and write for about a month on and off this winter. It's a semi-public, semi-private botanical garden overlooking Lake Casitas in Ojai, started by John Taft, who is still here at 91, overseeing his projects. It has flora from South Africa, Australia, and other similar environments to Southern California, tucked just beneath the mountains.
We were fortunate to have this place to come to when the LA fires started, and immediately wrote a new song about how the planet doesn’t owe us anything: safety, peace-of-mind, and how our thinking hasn’t evolved much from the days of sacrificing virgins to a volcano god or some such trope. The act of leaving or fleeing, in this case, is always a stimulant for writing, and the peace that this place afforded us made the lyrics and melody happen at the same time, which almost never happens.
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