In all this talk of aleph lists, journals, dictaphones, and Pro Tools, sometimes songs just appear out of thin air. If your there to catch it, it's one of the coolest things ever.

I have this purple effects pedal that has generally gone unused over the past four years. It's not hardwired into my pedal board. It's sounds are so bizarre that there is rarely a reason to use it. Occasionally, I'll program a patch that's musical and magical.

On the left channel of "Where There's a Door," you should hear a pulsating guitar thing. That's a "seek wah" patch that the purple pedal, when programmed, produced. Pretty cool, eh? The rhythm never changes, so I was locked into a tempo immediately. Because the rhythm was set, it made sense to use this pattern as the "click track" for the song. Using beat detective, I found the tempo and programmed the drum patterns appropriately. The effect was a more fluid song.

Over the past few years, I've been writing about ascension, or rising from despair; hope. This song is a portrait of hope. When the ship's going down, you've gotta keep your cool and keep your chin up. Otherwise, you sink. If you haven't figured it out yet, life isn't fun. It's hard. It's painful. It's tremendously disappointing. I think how we deal with that incontrovertible fact defines the kind of person we are.

The central image from this song comes from a common, everyday occurrence. Try this. After dark, turn off all the lights in your house. Now, find a walk-in closet, or one with light fixture. Turn on the light in your closet and close the door. Walk back a few feet and look at the door. It should have light sneaking out of the edges. Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night and see this. It scares the crap out of me.