Fly: This one is really important to me. I wrote the chorus a few years ago, knew what the song was about, but had to wait until the right way to say it came along. This song is about the fundamental contract between individuals and society. We all give up some individual rights in order to get some benefits as a group. On the simplest level, I agree not to kill the other people in this group, and together we will be able to hunt better and for bigger prey, or we'll be able to band together and farm, in order to ensue that all of us have more food and security. Small individual sacrifice for big group gains.
Now, it doesn't seem like we've done a fantastic job of getting rid of world hunger or of ending fighting and war, does it? So, society hasn't fulfilled its end of the bargain. If we're going to have a society, isn't the whole purpose to make sure that everyone has at the least food and safety?

When I think of these big goals for humanity, I always think of flight. In my mind, humans have wanted to fly for as long as we could dream. And I don't mean airplanes, I mean straight up fliying. To be honest, when I was a kid I really expected there would be at the least flying cars by the time I was an adult. Didn't you? So, for what we've given, what have we got? We can't even fly!

I got to record the rhythm guitar part for this song on a 1950s Gibson semi-hollow-bodied owned by our producer, Joe Blaney. That guitar just felt like a rich piece of velvet-y chocolate cake in my hands. I've also got to say, Gerard's guitar solo on this song is probably my favorite on the album. There's something really memorable about it. And, this is one of the songs that the legendary Bernie Worrell (keyboardist for Parliament and the Talking Heads) played keyboards on. He played a Hammond B-3 on this song. Getting to experience him playing music was one of the highlights of the entire recording process. Forget that he was a technical virtuoso. There are others. This man is just a living conduit for music. Once he started going it was like a lightning bolt hit him- he was gyrating twisting, turning, almost in a trance. It was an inspiration as to how much you can entirely put yourself in to what you're doing (he's also a great guy).

Oh, and I wrote this song sitting in a crappy piece of lawn furniture next to an empty dirty pool at a hotel at sunrise while we were somewhere on tour.