I keep a notebook where I jot down little pieces of ideas. Sometimes it's deliberate and I fill a page with the first draft of a lyric as I'm writing the music on my guitar. Other times it's just a word or two I've come across somewhere that makes me think, "hey, that could be a great song" More than a decade ago I wrote down "Upcoming Downtime" at the top of one of the pages in that notebook.. I don't recall where I'd come across it, and I didn't have an idea for a song beyond those two words. But I liked the contrast in the words and thought it might turn into a clever lyric.
A month or two before my wedding I was in my little basement studio playing with this little acoustic guitar riff and flipping through my notebook looking for inspiration and came across my Upcoming Downtime page. I knew I had some upcoming downtime called a honeymoon, and I got a little creative with how things could go south.
I'm super proud of this song. It's got that alt-country vibe that a lot of you know me for and this song features one of my favorite lines I've ever written. At the top of the second verse... "What am I gonna do with angry calls from your Mother, black-eye threats from your brother I can't answer the phone".