Singled Out: Fleming's Slip

"Slip into something more comfortable" is one of those cliched phrases that sounds familiar even though it's completely dated. I had just moved back to New York from LA, and although I had lived in the city for 9 years prior to my southern California jaunt, I felt out of place. Things I hadn't noticed before - the human-height garbage piles, the maniacal cabbies, the minuscule threshold for having the bird flipped at you, or rather, for flipping it, the living in shadows, literally, like embodying some sort of sick platonic reference - all resolved into a painful and uncomfortable focus. I had come up with the chords for a new song and I wanted it to be somewhat suggestive.

I was literally mouthing nonsense syllables over the music to figure out the melody. And then suddenly, I just uttered that line, that old femme fatale hook. Except that it resonated with me more broadly, in the sense of the relationship one has with a city or a group. How those first awkward few months can turn into titillating excitement when you figure out your place there and gain comfort in your own skin.

So the song became more about that natural longing and struggle to fit in and be happy in a place, a group, a subculture. And how that transition can be exciting even if your ultimate goal, to fit in, is as mundane and time-tested as your old, faded, favorite pair of jeans.