I wrote "High & Dry" way back in 2014, and originally intended it to go on my last album "The Lake", but it never seemed to quite fit into that concept, it seemed like it needed more time to fully develop, so I kept it stored away. When I revisited it some time ago, all the problems I originally had with just solved them selves all of a sudden. The song really resonated with me & became sort of focal point for my whole record "An Inconvenient Truth".
The song is about how people in our modern society like to judge people pretty quickly, - sort them into black & white if you will. In the lyrics I am describing a scene from my late teenage-hood that I remember very vividly. It was a time when I underwent a great deal of changes & confusion (as many do in these years).
What I learnt on that particular evening was that those teens I observed were doing these wrong things for all the right reasons. There was much more behind it, there was much more behind that cool, I-don't-give-an-F fassade. There was enormous vulnerability, there was confusion, there were hopes. Their fears & longings were surfacing, silently elevated by the stimulation. I remember that as a very truthful moment, everyone dropped their masks for a while - forgetting sorrow just for a while. Forgetting the loud outside world, and - more importantly forgetting the even louder world inside their own minds. In the end we all just wanna be loved. There are countless shades of grey (no pun intended) between society's black & white judgement of the youth's reaction to modern times. There is a lot of pressure on today's youth... Social media changed the way those kids see the world, they are bombarded with information on how they are supposed to live their lives, what they need to be & what they can't be. They can't flee that toxic environment even if they wanted to. This scene I am describing from the distance, as grim as it may seem, It was clear to see that those teens felt the most alive when they were there together, bonding over something so destructive, sharing their struggles. "High & Dry" is a bittersweet tale of finding the good in the bad, and the bad in the good.
"Monsters don't live under our beds, the monsters live inside our head..."