All of my songs have stories behind them, and I’ve told some of those here in the past. Since a number of DJs have played “The Man Called Thursday” recently, I thought it might be worthwhile to tell its story.
Chilling versus chill-out
Based on the feedback I’ve received so far, listeners who like the song have commented on it’s chilled summer feel, and of course I’m grateful for those comments. But I think the emotion of the song is more enigma than escapism; more intrigue than relaxation. That was my intent anyway.
In fact, I’ve written a number of songs with the goal of creating more of a chilling feel (as opposed to chilled), “The Last Resort” being a good example. I hope that when you listen to those songs, you imagine a film or a novel or your own narrative, some sort of story steeped in mystery.
Novella
Maybe those hopes are a little high. But “The Man Called Thursday” was itself inspired by a novel (or novella?) by G. K. Chesterton called The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare. I won’t summarize the book here – I wouldn’t want to give it away for those of you who haven’t read it, and I wouldn’t want to botch an explanation for those of you who have (and may grasp it better than I did). But it is a fascinating book filled with anarchists and allegory, and it’s the book I was reading when I dreamed up this song.
Listen
“The Man Called Thursday” comes from my album Down to Dusk: Rural Sounds Volume 2, which I hope you’ll check out if you haven’t already. And I’d love to hear your thoughts on this song or the book that inspired it.
