While it has been said, and quite rightly, that no work of art is ever finished but merely pauses in interesting places, and though these songs are not "finished" just for having been recorded, as they will doubtless continue to shift and metamorphose showing us Better or sometimes just Other ways of being, this is nonetheless a more permanent public "snapshot" of this moment, of myself as much as the songs, than live performance in its innately and gloriously ephemeral fashion could ever be, and as such occasions an accompanying and equally public recognition. Our families and our friends, while never more nor less perfect than ourselves on balance, in giving us their history and becoming a part of our own ongoing are justly acknowledged for part-authorship of these songs. Some among them have maybe meant to do little, some very much, and we imagine that few have accomplished exactly what they wanted, because that's just how these things go, but all - willing or not - have been involved, and for that I'm grateful. It is perhaps one of life's great comedies that their permission was never asked. It is perhaps one of its great graces that in my life until now, I've more often picked up the guitar than the whiskey, and having spoken, made a harmony of it as much as I could manage - and had company along the way.