The stale hiss of air blasted my face as I put my tray table in its full upright position. I was heading to Boston for a work trip and preparing myself for being confined to a chair for a five hour flight.
I don’t really like sitting down in general—I prefer to work at a standing desk and I pace chronically while I’m on the phone—so to counter the agony of being pinned to crusty fake leather for the foreseeable future, I looked to my phone for all the distractions I’d downloaded before takeoff.
I’d just finished writing “And Ever After” a few days prior and had ceremoniously presented a demo of it to my wife for Valentine’s Day to rave reviews. Still riding the high of completing my favorite song I’d written to date, I was already eager to get back home and record a legit version of it, so I figured I’d listen a few times and start planning all that out.
And it was a just a couple of minutes later when I got a flash of inspiration—one taking the song in a completely different sonic direction—and a few taps into exploring this new idea in my GarageBand app, I found myself head-bobbing more emphatically than my fellow passengers probably preferred.
But that’s when you know you’re onto something.
I spent the rest of the flight fleshing it out while vibing obnoxiously in my seat, and I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize for that.
When I finally reached the hotel it was almost midnight Boston time, and if someone had placed a hidden camera in that room, they are now sitting on the compelling footage of a grown man in headphones and gym shorts, dancing around an ironing board while alternating between pressing a shirt for a morning meeting and making tweaks to his latest banger.
That banger, my friends, is the Simpler Time Remix, the vast majority of which was made that fateful night on nothing but an iPhone, adrenaline, and the nostalgic longing of “remembering a simpler time.”