"young savages" is a tune about the cruelty of children & innocence lost (*pause for melodrama*).

this was one of the first songs i wrote for "tunes for bears," which was mostly penned & recorded in the lounge of my freshman dorm. i'd stay up late writing & track each song on my mac's isight mic as soon as it was finished. this was one of the easy ones, the ones that seem transmitted fully formed from some other plane or something.

the lyrics refer to an incident when i was 4 or 5 years old. i had these two really good friends (who i *thought* were really good friends at least), twins named ben & greg, who i played with pretty regularly. one day our families went to the park together & out of nowhere ben or greg pushed me down in the sandbox. i scraped my knee on the wooden frame (so "fell hard upon the concrete" is a lie for the sake of the rhyme haha) & it bled pretty good. i still have the scar. i ran to my mom, balling my pathetic lil eyes out, & never played with them again. we saw each other later, but our friendship was over. i just thought it was kinda weird, i never stuck up for myself or gave them a piece of my mind, just passively accepted that our friendship was done. ("i never wanted to fight.") i was a pretty wimpy lil kid, but at least i didn't get fooled twice.

joey nailed the cover & i love the energy that it kicks off the album with. i also love that he recorded & mixed the whole thing (except bass) on his smartphone (reminiscent of my original lo-fi isight mic recording process). joey's a great artist & friend - check out his incredible portfolio of paintings & illustrations here - www.joegrice.com