"Passing Through" is one of your greatest songs. There is a burnished, earned wisdom here that is fundamental and profound. You delve into the mysteries of immanence, of pratyahara, of turning inward, accepting what is so, falling away from the external world, embracing things as they are, discovering one's true nature; you penetrate the mystery and paradox of letting go to become, of gnosis without knowledge, of love both human and divine. You articulate the very journey you have taken. When I first heard this chorus, I wept. It is beautiful how you harness the deepening perspectives and sentiments of seasoning into life with spiritual rigor. That these contemplations are catalyzed by soaring music to insinuate themselves into our very blood and psyche is your special mastery and prerogative. Listening to this song, I felt that something larger is happening here, with you, something larger perhaps than even you know, bigger than the concerns that dog you of listenership or commercial success; in your own unique and unusual journey, from youthful metal head in Sour Puss to glam rocker and song smith in Liquid Bliss to Eschaton and your storied solo career in all its manifestations to your journey through Princeton Seminary to your spiritual rock opera Bold Enough To Say to this magnificent collection, you are becoming your own unique syntheses and signature expression, a sort of spiritual-master troubadour, and that is a very special thing indeed. There is no convenient mold or precedent for what you are. You are a pioneer, and that can be a lonely and uncertain thing. Christ speaks through you, Buddha speaks through you, nature and love speak through you, Euterpe speaks through you, you speak through yourself. The world cannot yet define you, but you should not be hindered by that, indeed should unapologetically let nothing interfere with the continued evolution of your unique and original voice. Trust it, revel in it, know its greatness, believe in it and yourself, trust the opinions of those around you whom you love and esteem, and never, ever stop writing and singing. Do it for love and for god and for the real muse inside you, and whatever the world does or does not do with it, it will be right and true. I always think, in the true journey of the artist or prophet, that one becomes at once precisely what one thought one would be but also something other, something more. Living a life can be just like writing a poem or a song: you go into it with an inspiration and an idea of how it will go, but for the process to be complete there has to be that little something extra, that moment of alchemy or divine affirmation that brings it all home and ascends it to deeper realization, to something perhaps even beyond the scope of one's own proffered humanity and original vision, something truly in service to creation, and that quantum attainment is usually a function of resistance and struggle as much as supple ease. You are in that magical phase now, I would say, in the hands at last of god after a very long and courageous journey finding your way through yourself, through love, through life, through music, and through resistance to that sublime creational space, and what is coming out is holy. - Ethan

Written & Produced by Billy Webster
Lead Guitar by Carl Basler
Recorded at The Jersey Dream
(c) Shampoo Girl Music, 2018