There was a girl

two years later. it’s the spring of 2000. tim and nate are seniors, finishing up degrees in journalism and english, respectively. nate is a bartender at the crazy horse. tim has a journalism class with a girl from greenwood, indiana, nate’s hometown. somehow this comes up when nate is serving her, that she has a class with tim and thinks he has some relatively good writing chops. nate has some songs that need lyrics. so the next time tim and snavid and don wagner and hollywood come by the horse, nate pours the beer and tells tim about the conversation he had with the girl, the one who’s name has been forgotten, but who is likely out there somewhere, unaware of her good deed. nate stands behind the bar at the horse and asks tim, why don’t you write me a song?

the next day tim sits on the floor of his room on 9th street and writes “the salamander’s sorrow.” He shows it to nate a few days later. It’s good, nate says, it will work. it’s kind of a story. then he adds, salamander might be tough, though. That’s a lot of syllables. I might have to change it to spider. and thus a song writing partnership was born. (and twenty plus years, with some gaps, of two grown men haggling and squabbling over syllables.)