Track three, "La Piedra de la Iguana," is a curious, yet confident track nestled after "Bare Hands, Bare Feet." The two songs developed together, but as time went on, they started taking two different and unique directions.

We were in the middle of jamming/writing the foundation of "Bare Hands, Bare Feet," and I played this little improv melody line with a synth. Someone said they liked it, and another agreed, so I kept jamming it out for a bit. No more than 15 or 20 minutes later, in the middle of playing, I started looking for paper and a pen. I knew that if I did not write down lyrics right then, I would lose the chance to capture the moment with words. I was thinking about building a city, and this is what I wrote:


"We moved our bones,
to lay these stones,
and now,
we're free.

We watched it grow,
let everyone know,
that our city,
is complete."


So the jamming/smoking/laughing/construction kept going on, and slowly "La Piedra de la Iguana" formed. After a few more practices, the song started taking on a true body. Curt started adding in gentle pinches and his graceful touches, Jack just let the soul fly, and he created a very entertaining bass-line that, in my opinion, seems to have a story-line in itself. Jo starts this song with the most entertaining hi-hat work I've ever heard him play, and the timing of the little accents still confuses me. In the end of the song, Jo also does a great job opening up and letting some of his might shine through before the song ends.

Later in the writing process, Curtis had the idea to match the synth melody with the guitar, making it a twisting and turning melody experience that comes crashing down before the final section of the song finishes the thought.

"La Piedra de la Iguana" is a brick-walled, city-night stroll down the freshly-built empire of music that we, The Bright Light Social Hour, deploy every time we step on stage. I do hope you enjoy it!

Love,
A.J.

Curt said to me, "Let's write a song where the chorus is 'let's build a city with our bare hands and our bare feet.'" I thought that was fucking hilarious, not to mention strangely representative of our general attitude. Besides the fact that Jo's afraid of trees, we're all a bunch of fun-loving hippies with titanic ambitions, and I think Curt hit the nail on the head with this one. 

But writing a song starting with nothing but lyrics was foreign to us. We tried finding a melody to match for a hot second, and quickly said fuck it, how about starting with a beat? Curt and Jo developed the intro/verse beat, but we still had trouble fitting it with the words. Having had the Best of Sly and the Family Stone CD stuck in my car stereo for several months prior, I suggested a classic Motown beat with the snare keeping the pulse. From there the chorus chant was born and everything else fell into place. We threw a tiny bit of guitar/bass/keys in, but this one is all about drums/percussion and vocals. The idea was to have a chorus sung by the 4 us, with each verse sung by a different one of the singers - Curt, myself, and A.J. - much like The Band song "The Weight". While Curt and I saw eye to eye with our verses, A.J. ended up taking an entirely different route with his, leading to "La Piedra de la Iguana", a sort of Part II of this song. But more on that later. 

Now when we began working on Bare Hands Bare Feet, I had recently returned to the United States from a summer in Turkey with my brother. I'll spare you a recreation of the description; here is an excerpt from an email I sent my close friend Chris after being there a week:

"What up frosty cock??
Im in muthafucking turkey!! We had no plan to be here but my bro was dying of allergies in frankfurt so we said fuck this and got a cheap flight that night to antalya on the south mediterranean coast with no clue about shit. nearby we just happened to find this totally righteous hippie treehouse commune on the beach in the ancient town of Olympos (there is now almost nothing but the hostel surrounded by ancient ruins and beautiful, gigantıc mountains and the beach). It's great, for 20 bucks a night you get a badass little treehouse with all meals included and there are tons of backpackers from all over Turkey and around the world. We planned to stay only one day but we've now been here over a week. It's so effing cool here I never want to leave! We just swim and rock climb and kayak and every night they make a gigantic fire with a dj and everyone gets shitfaced and dances barefoot until the sun comes up. Everybody is really badass. the babes are great. [...] I like turkish girls."

After a few more weeks growing to love this place and the people that made it special, my brother and I came up with the brilliant plan to start our own low-budget care-free hostel. Once again, I think it's best said in a message to Chris:

"Ok chris, lean in. i have a plan. 
so this treehouse/hostel/commune that we're staying at- we love it so much that my bro and i decided we are going to open a place like this in mexico (maybe in Puerto Escondido - Abuelito's already sold the bungalows - but probably on the caribbean coast in a more remote place south of cancun) and i want you to consider helping us out. We'll build cheap as fuck from scratch - im talking bare bones shitty little huts or treehouses with a bunch of bunk beds and hammocs. backpackers get so wet for that kind of shit. also, this badass mexican guy we met agreed to invest at least $100,000!!!

"So- once this all gets started i want you to consider working for us.  i think youd be great doing this type of thing and wed have a fucking blast. I know this sounds nuts, but we're dead serious - my bro is studying business and finance and has a good plan worked out and every single one of the international employees here has offered to help, many with a lot of real business knowledge. Let me know homie-o!!"


*Side-note to the members of The Bright Light Social Hour-
I know this plan would not really have been conducive to me continuing with the band. I guess that's why I never told y'all about it. Sorry!*

But of course I soon came home and the reality set in and my brother and I realized we didn't have anything close to the money, time and dedication required to take on such an extreme endeavor. At this point I'm very glad I made the choice to stay in Austin, finish school and dedicate myself to the band rather than start a hostel in Mexico (my contribution to the lyrics of 'Back and Forth' references this indecision). Maybe someday I'll have the opportunity to make it happen. But for now, I have Bare Hands Bare Feet. Here are the lyrics:


Chorus (all)
Let's build a city with our bare hands and our bare feet

Verse (Curtis)
Pick a place on a hill
Choose a spot on the beach
It's all within reach
Let's start it!

The tallest trees out front
A chicken coop in the back
Nobody's needs in lack
Let's start it!

I'll wind power my hips
I'll solar power my soul
Now we're on a roll
Let's start it!

A feast every night
A festival every week
If this is what you seek
Come on!

Chorus (all)
Let's build a city with our bare hands and our bare feet

Verse (Jack)
Muevete güerita (move it white girl)
Ponte a bailar (get to dancing)
Ponte a trabajar (get to work)
Let's start it!

Mueve el culito (move your little ass)
Quítate el vestido (take off your dress)
Todos somos amigos (we're all friends here)
Let's start it!

Cerveca fría in one hand (cold beer in one hand)
Hammer in the other
Get started with your brother
Let's start it!

Hey Curtis
Hey what?
Hey AJ
Hey what?
Hey Jo
Hey what?

Let's build a city a with our bare hands and our bare feet

Let's build a city

love,
jack

We are right to lay the trail
May the ocean treat us well

These are the only lyrics of our new song Ocean. 

The initial spark of inspiration for this song came out of Kanye West's "Love Lockdown". I had been digging on it for weeks when it came out, totally enthralled by the hearty African drums and simple, thick bass with minimalist arrangement. We jammed in this vein through many incarnations before I ended up settling on the verse bassline with the unlikely slap method, a method of playing that had once been fundamental to my style but had been retired until now. Jo was quick to marry the hard, funky bassline with a pulsating tom beat, but AJ and Curt for a time were at a loss with how to expand on the full groove established by the rhythm section. Finally, they abandoned their respective keys and guitar in favor of the Native American-esque chant harmonies that start the song off. Out of these harmonies Curt drew out the A#-F progression that supports the choruses and on which the entire second half of the song is based.

After developing the basic song structure we discussed what the song made us feel in an attempt to draw lyrical inspiration. The first half brought a very specific image to my mind that I described to the guys. When I was 19, my brother and I spent the summer working at our grandparents' bungalows in the Mexican hippie beach-mecca of Puerto Escondido. Though I had spent most of my summers growing up here, this year we were introduced to a side of the town we never knew existed. We caught wind of a secluded full moon beach party, and when we arrived that night were astonished by what we found - a wild community of indigenous locals, young hippies and gypsies from all across the globe, all dancing in the moonlight to the pounding music of hand drums. All nature's drugs swiftly switched hands to the rhythm as heads tilted back, eyes closed and hips became one with the night. There was a Brazilian girl, black as tar, thin as a rail, painfully beautiful with wrists wicked and lovely, dancing with fire in the center of it all, smiling at all the adoring stares and encouraging shouts and I think she must've felt it immediately, because the second I fell in love with her she spun violently around and we caught eyes for a frozen second and she gave a knowing stare and wink that made my heart swell. My brother and I were drawn in and proceeded to lose ourselves in the fierce and infectious enjoyment, and the next thing I knew the fire dancer and I were pressed tightly together, and well, that is the beginning of a story of young passion and heartbreak best left for another time. 

The point is this underground, moonlit scene of marginalized, wild beings fiercely engaged in dream-like celebration is the scene painted by Ocean's rhythmic first half, while the stiff, celestial second half takes the story to an even more surreal scene - that of a complacent, psychedelic-minded party-goer drawn away from dancing, fire and laughter by the magnitude, mystique and majesty of the ocean so large and dark at night. He leaves behind his unknowing peers to walk along the ocean floor, fearless, content and enlightened by his surrender to the belly of the big unknown. The first lyric celebrates the empowerment of a community of fun-loving picaros, while the second tells of the individual's trust, faith and awe in nature and the always-uncertain future. 



We are right to lay the trail
May the ocean treat us well

love,
jack