I pray we can move past the contemporary racial narrative that Elites have so cynically crafted and delivered via media and academia during the past several decades.

I recorded this song several times until arriving back to the basics of folk rock instrumentation (including the two chords I know on the mandolin!).

Saying goodbye to something can be difficult, even if the thing you're leaving is damaging you.

Being the enforcer of speech codes can be lonely in my as-yet-not-fully-imagined futuristic Orwellian musical. In this song, I assume the role of a police officer charged with finding and eradicating non-state-sponsored materials littering the landscape of communication.

Non-creative types can construe the artistic drive in others as confusing or off-putting. This song embraces that weirdness.

Wearing my 80s production and Bowie influence on my sleeve, I present this work.

I happened upon a really infectious beat I created a couple of years ago and, after an enjoyable session, pulled a catchy melody from the universe. As fate would have it, I decided to listen to The Doors for the heck of it, and realized what I had with this song is a Doors-influenced piece of classic rock with a twist of contemporary production. And so, On Fire was born. It was fun to channel a bit of Jim Morrison, walking the line between psychedelic and Sinatra in vocal and lyrical styling. Yep, looks pretentious to have typed that out loud.

My first song of 2019. It is written for my daughter, who is 20 and feeling angsty about being an adult.

Social Media Outrage Fable, "In-Fashion Passion" from Syntherference by Rod West. Released: 2018. Track 6. Genre: Rock.