I’m always drawn to narrators who find themselves alone in a crowd, which is one reason “Starting from Scratch” immediately became one of my favorite songs on the new album. When our speaker (singer) describes his nightly pilgrimage to the Cadogan Hotel, it’s impossible not to feel the romance of his condition:  he’s moving from the domestic realm, an undescribed place of work, to a romantic one, the Cadogan, made famous by Oscar Wilde and Lillie Langtry (among others), and situated in an idealized neighborhood rich in history (not to mention literal riches—that’s one pricey neighborhood).  It’s a strange place for a kid from Appalachia to hang out, and though we’re conscious that this narrator isn’t necessarily Skip, there’s no escaping his voice, his southern presence (that flying roach in the final verse brings us right back home).  Whatever the case, this particular character seems most interested in the silence of the place, a silence of solitude, not ennui.  In fact, that’s something I’ve always admired about Roman Candle songs, how they accept the need for solitude (remember the yearning voice of “New York this Morning”) without wallowing in some sort of unearned emo alienation. And that’s because the characters in these songs (composites perhaps of Skip and Timshel and Logan) don’t use solitude to turn inward, away from engagement with the world.  The voice in “Starting from Scratch” is taking it all down to silence in order to better hear the music that matters.  He’s still in the world, even as he stares at the night sky and welcomes the mystery, the unknowable.  It’s a wholly recognizable moment rendered gorgeously in a three-and-a-half-minute pop song.  Recognizable but utterly ineffable.  So why do we want to drink a gin and tonic downstairs from where Oscar Wilde got arrested?  Why is it we can sit in a bar and imagine lives for the people around us without feeling lonely for our own?  For that matter, how does art save us from ourselves?  Maybe the answer to all of the above is that we need songs and poems and paintings and whatever to help make us less alone with all that we can’t explain. This is one solacing song.  And for that I’m grateful.