I don't know if you'll remember this. This was years ago, back when you were in New England for the summer, clearing out your dad's place after he died. We were talking one night over skype - I was in Madison, if I remember right - you were on your childhood bed, in your childhood room, propped up by dusty stuffed toys, and taking these long, meditative draws from your dad's old pipe. During these lulls in conversation, whisps of pixelated, low-bitrate jazz would waft in from the kitchen, where his records were kept in permanent rotation. You told me that for a while now, whenever the sun went down, you had taken to keeping the place as dark and familiar and welcoming as you could. Drifting from room to room by candlelight. Peering through the hallway mirror into the shadows over your reflection's shoulder. Hoping to be haunted. I never believed in ghosts. I mean, that said, whenever the train passes your flat - even today - I still look up to see if you're there. Perched muppetlike at the upperfloor window, waving wildly down at a train full of strangers because you know I'm in among them somewhere. Even though you haven't been there for six years. I'm reminded of something I overheard once at a Philosophy department function back in 2008, it must have been. Two professors discussing a theory I have never been able to place: that our memories, and our thoughts, and our emotions can be argued to inhabit physical space. That we shed them in our wake like footprints in fresh concrete, and they stay precisely where we leave them, waiting for us to pass this way again some day. Retrace them. Resurrect them, in a way. I might be wrong, but I think that's what's happening here. That bittersweet image of you at the upperfloor window - smiling, waving - is effectively the first stop on this train's route. The tracks pass directly through this memory, these thoughts, these emotions, on the way to Ardrossan Harbour from Glasgow Central Station to catch the six o'clock ferry. Today especially it is a welcome distraction. Because I'm going home for Christmas. For the first since my Dad died. And that big old converted hotel by the sea that I grew up in - that I spent 31 consecutive christmases in without fail, sometimes with my grandparents, sometimes my aunt and uncle, once with you, but always at the very least my mum, my dad and I - that house is going to have just two people in it for Christmas for the first time since I have been alive. Two people tracking mud through the hallways. Trundling along as if on rails, with no choice but to retrace footprints in the carpet from a long time ago. Some decades old. And in doing so, pass through memory after thought after cold, grey emotion, like a hundred thousand unwelcome guests crammed into the narrow corridors of our dark hotel by the sea. As I said, I don't believe in ghosts, but that doesn't matter really. I don't think you did either. I think I'm about to find out what it actually feels like to be haunted.

We walked up into the field We crawled up out of the ocean Vast machines with crudded-up gears Blocks of granite, buzzing with motion We walked up into the field We carried you low in our bellies Sometimes a day seems to tick on for years Sometimes the sun sets early We walked up into the field We gathered around and around and around Some places are graves that just haven’t been dug Some places are churches that just haven’t been found And we walked up into the field We carried you high on our shoulders Some plots were reserved from the beginning of time Some feel a little bit older We crawled up out of the ocean An army of lichen and moss To see the stone being rolled into place Two centurions guarding the cross And of course, we are great galaxies with spiralling arms But some people are a little bit bigger We walked up into the field Somehow we carried you We carried you We carried you

The guidebook warned us not to come The dark is deep, and listen I don't want to make you nervous but I saw a shadow cross the moon Just for a moment, but I could have sworn it-- No never mind This is not of human design I heard a howling in the dark Like a dozen stray dogs being eaten by a much bigger stray dog The taste of metal on my tongue And I saw a shadow cross the blood blood blood red moon This is not of human design (All the world unravelling before my dried-out eyes The graves are opening) Can you call it a nightmare if it outlasts the night? There is something moving around out there Just beyond the treeline And I have seen it It's been seven steps behind me this whole time The smell of syrup on the breeze A hooded figure come to harvest all the wheat she sowed last year And I am staked just like a Scarecrow into the ground I can't even move my eyes She is gliding up the hill to me This is not of human design

We walked up into the field We crawled up out of the ocean Vast machines with crudded-up gears Volcanic granite, buzzing with motion We walked up into the field We carried you low in our bellies Sometimes a day seems to tick on for years Sometimes the sun sets a little bit early We walked up into the field We gathered around and around and around Some places are graves that just haven’t been dug yet Some places are churches that haven’t been found And we walked up into the field We carried you high on our shoulders Some plots are reserved from the beginning of time Some feel a little bit older We crawled up out of the ocean An army of lichen and moss To see watch the stone being rolled into place Two centurions guarding the cross And of course, we are all galaxies with spiralling arms But some people are a little bit bigger I’ve tried so hard not to finish this song But here we are Eight bars to go And then it’s done

I remember asking him over one of the few joints we shared, and quite soon before his death actually, how he'd dealt with his dad dying when he'd been 17. He said nothing for a long time. And then he said: "I don't know. I just did. Parents die, Matt. That's what they do. That's what they've always done." I guess I expected more. In fact, I could see that there was more, but he wasn't up for sharing. I think he was like me, in a lot of ways. When something big and scary charges straight at you, you don't face it down and take it on. You sidestep it, like a matador. Let it tumble hoof over horns into the deep, maze-like vault that extends like the tendrils of anthills for hundreds of miles beneath the surface, and which you keep near-perfectly locked. You trap the monsters behind that thick, iron-door and you slam it closed. That's how I am. That's who I am by default. I learned it from him I suppose. The Narcissist Cookbook is an attempt to counterbalance that impulse. It's a reminder not to lock the scary things away, whether they're bulls or ghosts or dragons. We don't run from these things here. We don't dance around them. Ideally we don't even fight them, we just see them, look directly at them and try to understand them. Sometimes I swear I can hear the bull - confused, and frightened. Raking its hooves in the dark. I need to go down there eventually, I know I do. The song's almost finished. Just one more go round, I think. Just one more. BEACHCOMBER BLUES I've been digging through the sand Filling my bucket up with things that might be gold The skin on both my hands is rubbing raw And the numbness is the only thing between me and the cold But I ain't going home until find something worthy of you Washed up on the shore from somewhere out among the blue I ain't lonely I got the beachcomber blues I got the beachcomber blues I've been digging through the sand Keeping my eyes out for a shine among the stones The clouds are turning black, And I don't need to be a sailor To know how hard the west wind blows But I ain't going home until I find something perfect for you Worthy isn't good enough, only the best will do I ain't lonely I got the beachcomber blues I got the beachcomber blues

When the days get shorter When the sky begins to pale When the winds are howling Down the high-walled, cobbled lane I write my name in the sycamore leaves And sign it with a kiss I’m coming home soon The blue moon after next When the night is hollow And shadows crowd the lawn When the doors are bolted And the curtains are all drawn You hear my voice in the creaking floorboards And hold your troubled head I’m coming home soon The blue moon after next I am the thing that stands outside your bedroom door And whispers through the keyhole The hand that knocks The face you pretend you can’t see outside the upstairs window If I am not welcome, you can tell me I’ll disappear like mist I’m coming home soon The blue moon after next

We awoke from our dream Hauled ourselves out of the ocean A rolling thunder of ancient machines Volcanic granite, buzzing with motion We crawled up through the fields We carried you low in our bellies Sometimes a day seems to tick on for years Somehow the sun still sets a little bit early Letting you go We are letting you go We stood upright on our haunches We gathered around and we danced in the mud Crowing, cackling nightmarish beasts Baked in heat, thirsty for blood And the people of this world, they have no words to describe us And we present you to the infinite sky And we carry you high on our shoulders Letting you go We are letting you go

I know I'm not going to be doing myself any favours with this comparison, but Leonard Cohen wrote 80 verses to Hallelujah before settling on the final five. Sometimes the results of our labour justify the lengths we go to to get there. This is not one of those times. I am so tired of this song cluttering the worktable in my mind, but I am not yet ready for it to be gone. It was meant to be for my dad - in case that wasn't obvious - and that's how the problem began. Ever eager, as I am, to fling every egg I can find into the closest basket I have to hand, I decided that this song was The Song. Capital T, Capital S. That it would be where I digest all of those undesirable emotions all at once. And it felt healthy even, at the time, to have somewhere to put them, somewhere they could be herded together and ringfenced. I dove into the process like I always do - smug and confident that I would be able to hold my breath and reach the bottom and bring something beautiful back to show everyone, and then it would be done, and I wouldn't have to think about this anymore, and I wouldn't have to feel like this anymore. But it's been two years now, and I don't feel like I've come up for air once, since the first demo, which was written and recorded on my phone the morning before the funeral, and I was rewriting it in my head less than two hours later, during the funeral service. There's a theory for this. Or a term, rather. It's called 'dissociation'. It's a coping mechanism. Something we do when we can't bring ourselves to lift our heads and look directly at the monster barrelling out of the dark toward us. Here's another theory, actually. If emotions can be boiled down to electrical signals bouncing around in the brain, then it follows that they are a part of the natural world - and therefore, have to obey the same laws as the natural world. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transformed, and I barely fucking cried when my father died. Where are all those emotions? If they have not been destroyed, then where have they gone? Reciever Of Wreck is not just a song, I think. It's an external hard drive for the feelings I can't bear to have close to me. And it will be effective for as long as I keep working on it, I believe. As long as I keep coming back every few months to push my grief another metaphor deep, until eventually even I start to forget what I walked up into the field that January morning to bury. This is something I have to decide. I can write and rewrite and rererewrite, but the song is never going to feel complete. One day I'm just going to have to stop. But even then, I can't just put my guitar down and walk away. I'm in far too deep for that. I don't think I get to feel like it's done, truly, until this song, and everything locked inside it, has been released. And maybe then, maybe, I can start the actual process of gathering up those emotions and finding a place for them. In me this time. Where they belong.

Six months after you died I dreamt that I saw you Standing down at the end of the old Lamlash Pier Staring out at the water You didn’t know I was there I stood and I watched you Tried to stay as still as I could Fought the urge to run up and hug you Letting it go I am letting it go Letting it go I am letting it go I felt myself waking up So I panicked and yelled out “Am I ever going to see you again?” And you said “No, probably not.” And I woke up feeling mad Mad at you for the answer Mad at me for projecting So much weight on to a dream of my father Letting it go I am letting it go Letting it go I am letting you go