The water and the natural environments played such a big role in shaping that record. So that song is really just kind of an ode to that feeling, and when we were making the record, we liked to go to the River and Stinson Beach. So we like to go to the river, and it just kind of calms you and helps you think. Everybody knows that desire of wanting to be near water. You canвЂ™t do the things you used to do, and you canвЂ™t go to places you used to go, and you feel so helpless and so heartbroken - and youвЂ™re trying to hold on to hope through it all. ItвЂ™s almost like the pandemic makes you feel like youвЂ™re breaking up with life or something. I think somehow when I found this music again, I realized that I was feeling that way about life with the pandemic, and a lot of people are feeling that way. YouвЂ™re trying not to fall into the pit of despair, and trying to stay hopeful. I know a lot of people know that feeling of when a relationship ends and you donвЂ™t want it to, but itвЂ™s in the best interest of everybody that it does, and how hard that is. This thing was ending that I didnвЂ™t want to end, but it had to end. Just trying to stay hopeful, even though I felt so out of control. For a lot of The Waterfall, I was dealing with the end of a really big relationship and processing and trying to figure it out. Were you in a heartbroken place when you were writing these songs? And then when we were cutting it, I was starting to miss the slower part, and I was like, вЂњOh, shit, what if we just combine the two and slow it down at the end?вЂќ And then somehow, you know, it just ended up we somehow got to the faster place, and weвЂ™re really enjoying that. And I remember we were knocking it around as a slower song for a while. Well, itвЂ™s funny, because originally we wrote that song and it was slower, kind of like where it gets slow. And now, who knows when вЂ¦ We donвЂ™t really want to release it until we can tour with it and all that stuff, so, knock on wood, hopefully sometime in 2021.Дo you remember where you were when you wrote вЂњClimbing the LadderвЂќ? I love the melody and also the way the band speeds up and slows down throughout the song. The guys flew home in early March, so we got all of the recording done. We did a couple different sessions earlier this year, and the guys were flying home just as the pandemic started to be taken seriously. So My Morning Jacket has been in the studio making another new record, in addition to Waterfall II? But when you havenвЂ™t done it for years and you do it again, youвЂ™re just like, вЂњOh, this is the source of life, this is the fountain of youth, this is what keeps me alive!вЂќ ItвЂ™s funny, after youвЂ™ve been beaten down on the road for so long, you just, like, almost hate the idea of playing another concert. Those just kind of really brought us all back together, and we remembered how much we love playing together. When we had the chance to do those four shows last year at Red Rocks and Forest Hills. So we just kind of stepped back and then it all just kind of came back together. I just kind of needed some time because the touring was just killing me. How long did you take off from my Morning Jacket after touring? We were so excited and so ready to be a band again and tour again and release a new record, but then, obviously, along with everybody else, the pandemic shut all that down. It was almost a way to to deal with this feeling of helplessness. This record really wouldnвЂ™t have come out now if it werenвЂ™t for the pandemic. So releasing this record was the last thing on our minds because we were just kind of moving on. And even with the Jacket, itвЂ™s like, once we kind of played together again and fell back in love and got going again, we started working on a new record. IвЂ™m just kind of moving on to the next thing. ThereвЂ™s been so much new music that IвЂ™ve written that I just kind of forgot about these. And itвЂ™s so funny, because I always knew weвЂ™d release these songs someday, but I thought maybe 10 or 20 years later we would drop it. When we decided not to release them, after all of the Waterfall touring, we decided to take a break from the Jacket for a while, and I worked on solo stuff. So I try to tell people, itвЂ™s not like these songs are like B sides or songs that we didnвЂ™t like as much. But that would have been too much and a lot of the songs would have gotten lost. Well, itвЂ™s funny because when we did the Waterfall, we were going to release all of these songs, and it would be a huge triple album. ItвЂ™s wild that youвЂ™ve been sitting on the songs for so long. Waterfall II is such an incredible album.

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