Crywolf

LIVE VERSIONS - Quixote

Added 2025-02-17 20:00:08 +0000 UTC

Some songs resist being stripped down, refusing to exist the same way without the scaffolding of their production, and Quixote is one of them. I’ve only ever played it by request, unsure if it could stand on its own—but when I do, it always surprises me. Without the layers, the song shifts, the emotions land differently, and I find myself feeling the lyrics like they belong to someone else. It’s less of a performance and more of a rediscovery, like I’m covering my own work.

I wrote this one in Patagonia, right after all my gear was stolen. Alone in a cabin in the rainforest, unraveling, running around making strange sounds into the mic—one of the closest I’ve come to actual psychosis. I tend to go there when there’s a loss that feels too massive for me to fit in my mind.

But it worked. The chaos turned into something I loved. Playing it live now feels like reaching back through time, pulling something raw and untamed into the present. I do wish I had performed it with Emalyn, though. We ran through it once in a practice session, and she did this eerie, beautiful call-and-response on the "when you inhale" bridge that gave the whole thing a new dimension. Maybe next time.