Contents May Have Shifted

Liner notes

Free Delivery and its bonus versions sent these songs wandering through just about every style imaginable. When it was finished, I found myself wanting to try the opposite: a thematic album, with the original songs gathered under one roof and speaking in a single voice.

I chose the blues. The blues has always been honest music, music about searching, struggling, falling short and holding on, and I thought these songs would translate well. Lyrics I wrote in 1987 for a very different world seemed right at home with a slow groove and a little grit underneath them.

Finding a title took longer. I kept coming back to the idea that many of these were the same songs, yet very different. That got me thinking about the common phrases for things that have been changed or shuffled around, and somewhere along the way I landed on the fine print you find on the side of a box: Contents May Have Shifted. The package is the same, but things may have moved around a bit in transit. Then came the question of how to tie that into the pizza theme that started with Free Delivery. Picture a pizza box sliding off the seat and onto the floor on the way to your door, and the album cover more or less designed itself.

Of course, an album with that name needed a title track. So I wrote a new song to open the record, Contents May Have Shifted, based on 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

A few other songs found their way onto this album too. Living A Lie is a cut from 1987 that didn't make Free Delivery, but by the time I made this record, it came together nicely in this form. Jesus Made A Way was originally written as a worship song, inspired by an Easter Sunday message at church. Trailer Trash Woman is a comedic track written for my lovely wife, Bridey. And Mohammed Akim and Vinny Skin is in honor of my great friend and oldest bandmate, Vince: a biopic look at a music career that never bloomed.

Same ingredients, new recipe. I hope you enjoy every slice.