Not Lonely, Just Campless

Track eight is the tenderest song on the record, and it exists to make one distinction the album refuses to blur. I am not lonely. I am only campless. And those are not the same. The last song left me alone in a cold yard outside the lit houses. This song fills that same yard with my people.

It is the one place on the album a second voice comes in - a warm harmony on the choruses - because this is the song about not being alone. And it names the people by what they are. There is a woman in this yard who chose the cold along with me. She could have gone into a warmer house and she stayed. She does not need me to be right, she only needs me to be home. There is a son who pushes me and will not let me rest. There is a friend I have never stood beside, never shook his hand one time - and have written to nearly every day for the better part of twenty years. And a few good brothers in the dark who know my voice.

The bridge says the thing the men in the warm houses cannot see. They think a man out here is all alone. They cannot see past their own lamplight to the yard. But the yard is where my people are - the ones who came on out. And I would not trade this cold and crowded yard for the warmest house with half of them inside. Campless is real and it costs. Friendless it never was. The house was never the home. The yard was always home.