(an acoustic guitar begins playing a suspended chord characteristic of the instrument)

Wish I was a wilderin’ man1 Got caught up in the hunt again2 Trap a couple critterin’ friends3 Bring em home to feed the family

Wish I was a wilderin’ man Got caught up in the hunt again Adrenaline and an amen4 Keep us safe under the canopy

On the inside lookin’ out Soft delicate in the sound Do I cradle it? Do I smother it? Heavenly Father What’s gonna make you proud?5

Wish I was a wilderin’ man Gotta keep up with the caravan Someday there’ll be a second wind Don’t ask there’s no one listening

In the pack we like to pretend There’s glory in the bitter end Burn it all for the engine Humble son don’t mourn the casualty

On the inside look around Deep resonance, gentle hound6 Can you imagine it? Is it relevant? Heavenly Father Who’s lost and who gets found?

Oh brother, don’t get bent Who’s gonna work to pay the rent?7 Oh sister, time will tell What you make and what you sell

Oh brother, don’t get bent Who’s gonna work to pay the rent? Armor tight and hide it well Feed the fire but don’t inhale8

Bet I’d be a wilderin’ man Come back home from the war again9 Half living or you’re half dead Ever safe under the canopy

Wish I was a wilderin’ man Got caught up in the hunt again Trap a couple critterin’ friends Just for the feel and fantasy10

(Instrumental for a while)11

Take heart little one Just a few months more And the wind from up north12 Is gonna pass on through

Chin up pretty thing Keep your head down low13 Pray that April will unfold14 Raise up something new

(Instrumental outro)15

Footnotes

  1. The word “wilderin” is a made up word that I received in the context of this lyric. Hunting connotations obvious, I don’t think I bothered to refine or replace it but rather makes its definition apparent through the other lyrics and sounds surrounding this. I am not the first person to use this word but I’ll admit at the top I’m taking some artistic license here ↩

  2. This lyric came early and stuck… despite its ambiguous meaning. I’ll take a crack at explaining. To me, getting caught up in the hunt describes a phenomenon in toxic strains of masculinity. There’s a feeling of being part of the pack in pursuit of glory… in pursuit of the ends, we sometimes allow some really bad means to those ends. This allows good-intentioned men to do some real damage to those that get strung along in the wolf-pack, and even makes those who get strung along into perpetrators themselves. Likely a phenomenon in all kinds of social groups, I have frequently experienced this in fraternal groups. This wolf-pack image comes up again in the song and is no accidental reference to the wolves from the lyrics of Terminus. ↩

  3. Another early lyric that was received and remains here purely for the physical pleasure of saying it aloud ↩

  4. Observing some of the contradictory values upheld in some religious circles: a celebration of adrenaline often used for aggression, while wrapping it up in religious language to make it into some heroic act. A perversion of the faith. ↩

  5. Extending the faith-based examination here. The music makes this clear in the B section: this is the inner monologue of a wolf running in the pack of the A section. Finding aspects of itself that are not allowed to be exposed, what is one to do? And to what are we aspiring to? Assimilation with others, fealty to a god?

    The song “In The Dark” explores the distance between the self and the other. “Wilderin” explores the distance we can create between aspects of our self, and the ways we can isolate those aspects in the same way we isolate each other. ↩

  6. More pushing against the assimilation of being in the “wolf pack” that demands uniformity. ↩

  7. In this song we’ve had these competing A and B sections that come to a head here in a new section. This section serves as an inner-voice that is just trying to soothe the cognitive dissonance and defer a resolution because there is a real fear of spinning completely out of control. The feeling of needing to keep a lid on your own neuroses is not limited to the masculine experience, but there is a tradition of “provider” that is being weaponized here to quell any sort of tearing-down of the status quo set by the A section. ↩

  8. In the end, the song gives into the A section but not without some observed critiques. ↩

  9. Since we’re on the topic of faith, this image comes from Fr. Richard Rohr who writes about the disenchantment of soldiers returning home from war. After devoting themselves to a mission, they find they still have an entire “second half of life” to live (from his book Falling Upward). ↩

  10. Citing Richard Rohr again, his image of the soldier coming home from war describes someone who has all this knowledge and tooling that no longer serves a purpose at home. Likewise, in the modern day, the average person no longer has a true need for hunting food. Here the lyric is arguing that often these glorious ends we’re in pursuit of aren’t even all that glorious, and is disconnected from reality. ↩

  11. This was always conceived as an outro, but I decided to keep it tied together to the one song instead of making it it’s own. It felt right to have an extended cool down after Wilderin builds up so much internal pressure. ↩

  12. A north wind is one that brings cold weather and is symbolized as an ominous force (as Boreas in greek myth) ↩

  13. Chin up, but keep your head down. Returning to the relational themes of the album. To me these stanzas are about the underhanded deals we make with ourselves, thinking we are fooling ourselves like we could fool someone else. Of course we can’t, but we do it anyway. We know we are only buying ourselves time, “just a few months more”, but maybe once the weather is warmer things could be different. ↩

  14. The month of April… petals unfolding out of a budding up plant in springtime ↩

  15. The acoustic guitar solo at the end is an attempt of “something new” without lyrically stating it outright. ↩