Within the twelve tracks of this record you’ll find glimpses of the human experience. You’ll ask questions, face doubt, and find comfort. This album allows fans to connect more deeply with Caleb now than ever before. He walked us through each track which can be seen below!

NOT MY OWN

I’ve always valued and viewed the purpose of an “opening track” differently than the rest of an album. It’s not that the opener can’t be a single, or someone’s favorite, but I sort of see it as a gateway into what the meat & potatoes of your album is going to be about. That being said, Not My Own is very much that; a gateway into the story I am telling with In One Breath. All of the main themes are tapped: the loss of memory, the frailty of humanity, the fleeting nature of time, finding and dissecting your own beliefs.

Of course, the conclusion of this track isn’t necessarily a “happy” one, but we’re not there yet and that would be far too simple. It is an opener to the story, and we start broken and confused. My hope is that this track is not too dismaying to where the listener doesn’t want to continue. There is light to be had, but we must start at the bottom and work our way up.

ON MY OWN

Almost as if to reassure the listener, I open with the lines “I’m alright. I’ll be fine.”; a sort of self-awareness that I know what I just said sounded grim and moody…and unfortunately the ending of THIS song isn’t much better. I wanted to ground my “musings” from the previous track in something more concrete and relatable so this track is essentially about the many ways in which anxiety and depression works its way into our everyday lives. This one was inspired sonically by Motion City Soundtrack and actually features their drummer, Tony Thaxton.

It was an absolute thrill to have him on the song and he really captures the frenetic nature of the lyrics. Time is still a forefront theme, especially during the bridge, but these two songs were always meant to be together thematically. I imagine Not My Own as the inner-workings of the mind, and On My Own as the physical-manifestation of those thoughts.

GOODBYE, MONDAY

The first of what I’m calling the “narrative tracks” on In One Breath. Goodbye, Monday is meant to be interpreted in several different ways and I don’t necessarily want to give too much insight into the song’s inception because I really like how the song sits both poetically and literally. But, obviously, there’s some kind of relational-theme that can be derived and that was intentional. CG5 helped me on this one and really helped craft that atmospheric, jarring, and doldrum-like pace that I was going for.

The structure of this song has always been fun for me, and I think it’s one of the more “lasting” tracks on the record. Hence why I choose it as the single. It has legs both thematically and musically. No matter how much time has passed since writing this one, I always revisit it.

STAY

I knew I wanted to have my rock/pop influence on display at some point in the album. Jumping off from the relational-themes of the previous track, Stay hyper focuses and muses on the ups-and-downs of both romantic and platonic relationships. It’s a self-reflective track on how I’ve handled myself within all of my relationships including the relationship I have with myself. Admitting that I’ve neglected my own needs for the sake of others and, at the same time, how I’ve held that against them; owning up to the fact that I’ve wanted to run away from the problems I’ve created but that, to grow, I must choose to stay over and over.

PRIVILEGE

Certainly a departure from the sound of the album up to this point. We’re entering into a sort-of “experimental” section. I like to think of the album in three separate chapters and these next four are the experimental songs. It’s all whiplash, no continuity sonically; just all around chaos. Privilege, as a concept, has been at the forefront of our society’s consciousness for about three-years now. And this is a problem I’ve been wrestling with for many years as it relates to my faith. Being a Christian, I’ve noticed this trend towards our relationship with Christ being used exclusively as a means of self-help. To find who we are in God is not a process of working hard and attaining; it’s surrender and it’s sacrifice.

The needs of others and the serving of God are the most paramount ways in which Christians can make God “real” and understand “who” God is. Most of the opening of this track is a direct conversation I and other believers have had with God. However, the pre-chorus and chorus are the realities of our failings as disciples. Whenever I say in the bridge, “perhaps who I am is not for me to know”, is an attempt at explaining that the constant searching for one’s “self” is stopping me from serving others. If you want to see Christianity in-action, how it’s supposed to be, you will struggle to see it in the modern-day, American, evangelical church. I’d like for this to change, but it won’t until we reconcile some critical misunderstandings about the Gospel of Jesus.

SOMETIMES YOU JUST FORGET THINGS

I’ve been told that this is the most “defeated” song on the album. And that doesn’t surprise me. There is little to no “light” to be found. Loss of memory and one’s self is the subject matter and I really wanted it to be unflinching. It was meant to be arresting in its composition; soliloquy-esque in its delivery. It is arguably the most “musical” track on In One Breath with its movements and orchestration. My grandad experienced memory loss due to a stroke several years before he passed and I, myself, have noticed my memory failing me on more than one occasion.

Decades of my life feel completely disconnected from my lived experience. If I dwell on this too long I do find myself paralyzed; trapped in the thought. I often rationalize the experience as, sometimes, you simply just forget things and that’s okay. Bizarrely enough, this track and the next are thematically connected, but not musically in any way.

WASTING TIME

In the midst of that “paralyzation” I mentioned above I do wonder, at what point did I start considering time “wasted”? And what, if anything specifically, is causing the sensation? It seems that I do nothing more than jump between states of planning events and work and waiting. The moment of the actual “doing” feels almost robotic; perfunctory, if you will. This song harkens back to the pop-punk sound of “being misunderstood” and “hating this town”, but is actually about desperately trying to find the value of “time” once more.

To ground that concept in something personal, like a relationship so that it may never go away or be questioned again. If only I could know for sure that I have changed and that I did live, then maybe I could throw away the notion of time wasted while being alive.

SURVIVAL IN DISGUISE

When talking to my wife about Survival In Disguise I described it as an “anti-worship” song. It is a decidedly spiritual track, but not in a completely “uplifting” way. It’s sort of self-incriminating. As I write these “track by tracks” I’ve come across another common theme in these songs; doubt. And track eight is about this topic most explicitly. “But what is serving others if not just a means to feel complete?”. I mentioned before that Christianity has sort-of morphed into this self-actualization culture.

This lyric is a manifestation of that thought. In the bridge, I make the daring attempt to take the Gospel, Jesus’ teachings, and sing them back to anyone who may be thinking like I’ve been. It’s a call-to-action, a call to rest-assured, a call to true humility. Melodically, this piece was meant to sound a little bit like a celtic-hymn and a little bit like a worship song. I think it ended up drifting more into the celtic-sounding territory than the worship motif, but I’m satisfied with the overall message.

LEAVE A LIGHT ON FOR ME

Speaking of my wife, Leave a Light On For Me is directly inspired by her childhood. I knew that her stories of exclusion and self-shame were, unfortunately, very common and that sharing her experience could bring some healing to those who’ve yet to reconcile the pain they’ve internalized. It might also help those currently going through similar situations to know that there is an end to the suffering of loneliness and exclusion and that this culture of comparison does not have to be part of your story. This is the most narrative, to-the-point song on the record and I’m sincerely hoping that those who can relate feel held and understood while listening.

I’LL NAME HER SONG

The working title for this track was “TheSongForMyChildren”. Parenting is an under-represented topic in modern-day music. Yet, it’s such an integral part of all of our lives. I muse on what it will be like, what I will say, how I will react, my fears and hopes. I’ll Name Her Song was greatly inspired by Steven Curtis Chapman’s “Cinderella” from several years back. I wanted something my child could listen to through every stage of their life, but also be a song that parents, old and new, could be encouraged by and maybe even understand their children better through it. Jonathan Young’s influence on the record also starts here. He had the idea to take this song up several keys and it was a phenomenal idea.

AMBER AND RAIN

Arguably, the most “poetic” song on the record. The idea of a person’s life being a “work of amber and rain”. Amber, the material, being this beautiful thing that perfectly preserves objects over an enormously long period of time within trees. Obviously trees need water to grow, and this process of being preserved within the tree does “refine” the amber. Of course, for amber to form it must be undisturbed, hence the idea of “loneliness adds value in time”. Poetically, this is an attempt at reconciling one’s current loneliness as a means of delayed personal value that will eventually be discovered and sought-after by others.

But, once again, doubt comes creeping in: “And the tragedy is knowing that we won’t know who we are, because who we are is resting in the knowledge of “whose” we are”. The idea here being that our identity is either formed/found in ourselves or in others and those two things are often so influx that we never feel “finished” or “complete”. The second verse, however, does attempt to solve this crisis by presenting the notion that our souls are intrinsically valuable things and that once we know this to be true, that’s when we can live in peace and help others find it. However, the chorus still refrains the uncomfortable, but maybe, possible, defeatable truth; we won’t know who we are.

IN ONE BREATH

I debated about what I wanted to write for this, the final song on the record, and I think I’ve settled on not wanting to say too much. It really does speak for itself and to try and dig some greater detail out of it could potentially obfuscate what I hope I captured with In One Breath. I guess I could apply this reasoning to all of my tracks, but suffice it to say, this is the culmination of everything I’ve talked about above and everything the song’s themselves have said. I pray it brings you hope.

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