October 10, 2026 — Verve Music
Some people disappear without a trace. Others disappear in plain sight, surrounded by people who never quite see them.
My latest song, “The Space Between the Walls,” began with a real mystery, but somewhere along the way it became something much more personal.
I've been trying to find information about a fellow musician, Dan Foster, whose whereabouts have become a subject of concern and uncertainty. Looking for someone who has disappeared is a peculiar experience. You follow fragments of information, old photographs, memories, conversations, and occasional leads that may or may not take you anywhere.
But as I worked through the search, I found myself thinking about another kind of disappearance.
What about people who are physically present but emotionally unreachable? People who live among us, who pass through our daily lives, yet somehow remain invisible? What about the walls we build around ourselves, sometimes without even realizing we're doing it?
Those questions became the foundation of this song.
A Road Through Greenfield
The opening verse begins close to home:
There's a road that runs through Greenfield
There's a river running south
There's a thousand things I've wanted
That have never left my mouth
Greenfield, Massachusetts, is part of the geography of this story, but the landscape also serves another purpose. Roads, rivers, orchards, and mountains appear throughout the lyrics as familiar places that can nevertheless contain enormous emotional distances.
The song isn't an attempt to explain what happened to Dan. I don't know the answer to that question.
Instead, his story prompted me to think about the ways people become separated from one another, sometimes through circumstances beyond their control and sometimes through the quieter accumulation of misunderstandings, fears, and things left unsaid.
When Isolation Becomes Familiar
One of the verses contains these lines:
I've been living in the daylight
I've been sleeping through the years
I've been building little kingdoms
Out of memories and fears
I think most people can recognize something of themselves in that image.
We construct lives around familiar routines, responsibilities, and relationships. Over time, those structures can become protective. They can also become restrictive.
It's possible to be surrounded by people and still feel profoundly alone.
The chorus describes that contradiction:
Oh, the space between the walls
Is wider than the sea
You can stand beside somebody
And be somewhere they can't see
I wasn't interested in writing a song that simply described loneliness. I wanted to explore the possibility of reaching across it.
That distinction became important as the song developed.
Amy's Harp and My Violin
My friend Amy is visiting, and she's brought her harp.
There's something particularly appealing about combining harp and violin. Both instruments have long histories, and both can be extraordinarily expressive, but they approach sound in very different ways.
The harp produces its notes through plucked strings, with each attack followed by a natural decay. The violin, with its bow, can sustain a note, change its intensity, and shape it continuously.
Put them together and you have two instruments that can complement one another beautifully.
The harp can establish a harmonic landscape while the violin moves through it, sustaining phrases and responding to the resonance of the plucked strings.
Or the roles can reverse, with the harp providing melodic gestures while the violin supports them.
For this song, I liked the idea of two instruments having a conversation.
That seemed appropriate for music about communication, distance, and the difficulty of reaching another person.
Sometimes a musical phrase can express something that would sound awkward or inadequate if spoken aloud.
The Trees Were Listening
One of my favorite verses moves away from the search and into a more familiar landscape:
There's a tune I almost remember
There's a face I used to know
There's a path behind the orchard
Where the wild blackberries grow
The verse ends:
And I swear the trees were listening
In a way that people seldom do
That image comes from something I've often felt while spending time outdoors.
Nature doesn't require explanations. A walk through the orchard or along a wooded path can provide a kind of quiet companionship that is difficult to describe.
I don't mean that trees literally understand our troubles. But the natural world offers a space in which we can exist without having to explain ourselves.
There's a certain freedom in that.
And for a musician, the sounds of the natural world have their own expressive qualities: rain, wind, birds, moving water, and the extraordinary variety of rhythms that exist without anybody conducting them.
A Different Ending
When I began developing the song, the central image was the enormous distance between people.
But I didn't want to leave it there.
The final chorus changes the meaning of the earlier refrain:
Oh, the space between the walls
Isn't wider than the sea
There's a hand across the distance
There's a place for you and me
It's a small change in language, but an important one.
The walls haven't necessarily disappeared. The difficulties haven't magically resolved themselves. The mystery that helped inspire the song remains a mystery.
But the possibility of connection is still there.
Sometimes that connection doesn't require an explanation or a solution.
As the bridge suggests:
I don't need you to come find me
I don't need you to explain
Just sit with me a moment
Let us listen to the rain
Perhaps that's enough, at least for a little while.
Listen to “The Space Between the Walls”
This song brings together several things that have been occupying my thoughts lately: friendship, isolation, the search for a missing musician, the natural landscape of Western Massachusetts, and the remarkable ability of music to communicate without requiring everything to be put into words.
I'm grateful to Amy for bringing her harp into the project. There's something special about making music with a friend, particularly when the music itself is concerned with the connections between people.
The song doesn't solve a mystery.
It doesn't pretend that loneliness can be eliminated with a few reassuring words.
But perhaps it offers a reminder that the distances between us aren't always as permanent as they seem.
And sometimes a violin and a harp can say something that neither of us could quite manage in conversation.
Listen to the recording on Bandcamp:
The Space Between the Walls — Verve Music
You can also explore more original recordings and musical collaborations at Verve Music on Bandcamp.
Verve Music — Original compositions, recordings, and collaborations.
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