I hadn't attempted a songwriting collaboration since the Cockeyed Ghost days, partly because I feel like before I start writing with other people I need to get off my ass and finish up my own songs and when it comes to songwriting, I am lazy. It's hard work and there's just lots of other things I'd rather do with my day...one of the joys of the GO WEST experience was figuring out how to accelerate the songwriting process by basically setting up the vocal mic to do a vocal, pulling up a Word file on the computer, and forcing yourself to get on with it. However, once GO WEST went double, I'd already come up with about a dozen good new songs and so one of the ideas was to have Teresa, Evie and Kurt all submit their own songs. Teresa and Evie both came up with really good ideas. We only had time to do one of them and although both fit the theme of the album, Teresa's filled a gaping hole in the songwriting chain...we needed a song between "Learning The Ropes" and "1 in 4" that talked about your first serious relationship, and that's what she had brought in. It also offered an opportunity for us to collaborate (Evie's was pretty much finished, whereas Teresa's, while complete unto itself, had room for more work), which I thought would add an interesting dimension to the album.

We weren't able to really address this song until the rest of the album was basically finished, but since this track was the only one being worked on at the time (the rest of the album being basically done barring remix work), it enabled us to really focus on it. Songwriting wise, the original idea was Teresa's and the finished song is pretty much a 50/50 collaboration. The verses are basically hers, the choruses are basically mine and the bridge is half and half. I came up with the Christmas idea, appropriately enough, when I was out on a walk to buy Christmas presents, but deliberately did not tell Teresa until I could actually play the chorus for her because I knew she would shoot it down. In fact, when we did the basic track of the song, she recorded her section of the song, then I told her what to play on the chorus without letting her hear anything else. When she finally heard where the chorus of the song was going, she send me a text message that said something like "you bastard! You turned my song into a Christmas carol, and it's great, damn you." Getting the lyrics to both our satisfaction was a real challenge. There were probably six or seven drafts of the lyrics, mostly because I was a total prima donna about it, with my favorite lines in the finished song (the second verse) being Teresa's, who also forced me to take out one line that in retrospect was really dreadful. And that's the good thing about collaborating...there's someone to tell you you suck. It takes a lot of pressure off. But you do wind up irritating your songwriting partner a whole lot, it seems.

It hadn't originally been intended to come out this poppy, though I did want to do something that sounded a little like Lindsey Buckingham's work for Fleetwood Mac (which again put me back on the drums, since I knew what kind of feel I wanted but didn't know if I could explain it to anybody...it came out pretty close to what I wanted though I wish I'd had another day or two to practice), reflected in the close male-female vocals and some of the quirky keyboard touches. In fact, one of the other goals for this song was for it to cost absolutely nothing to record, and except for the drum track, I did all the recording and mixing on this song myself (with Teresa again appearing instrumentally on the bass), another experiment that worked out really cool.

My favorite thing about this track is the lead vocals. Unlike "Dance," Teresa and I did them separately, wanting to get a certain close-mic and close harmony intimacy to it. I did mine first, really working hard to get that breathy sound and the mic placement and pitch just right, and then Teresa did hers while I was at the gym. When I came back to edit the tracks, I was blown away by how great her performance was...her vocals were outstanding and I had many tracks to choose from. When she first joined the band, Teresa was an iffy vocalist, but she has grown to such a degree that she gets regular calls to do background vocal sessions. With this song, she also showed she could handle the lead vocal with great skill.

As for the subject matter, it wasn't just about new love, but sexual discovery. For about a year I hung out in the lesbian community in Los Angeles. For some weird reason I've always felt more at home in subcultures that I don't logically belong to, and much of "December 24" was inspired by that experience and observing the lives of the friends I made there.