Chasing Ecstasy from You by Max Comeau

I honestly am at a loss when it comes to explaining this song – it literally fell into my lap, from the sky. It wrote itself in about 10 minutes or so. I’d been listening to a lot of Lauryn Hill, Bill Withers, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder and I knew I wanted to write a more soulful song, something with a beat and a drive. There’s no doubt I was thinking of all of the relationships from the last few years; some of them great, others not-so-great and I was considering their common thread: me, chasing ecstasy – or bliss or happiness. Isn’t that what we’re all chasing? Some of us are simply more practical and realistic about it. I chase ecstasy in my music, in my friendships, in my love affairs, in my outings … heck, I chase ecstasy at work. I refuse to be unhappy. This song is all about taking the leap, trying to make that impossible jump and just hoping for the best. After playing the song for both my friends Julien and Jean-Claude one night, it struck me the song needed a bridge or middle-8. I felt uninspired and didn’t know where to take the lyric until, one day on my way to work, reading from an Emily Dickinson book of poetry, the lines: “A shady friend for torrid days is so much easier to find, than one of higher temperature for frigid hour of the mind” hit me like a ton-of-bricks. Like my hero Lindsey Buckingham who used Dickinson’s “Gift of Screws” for one of his classic songs, her words came and filled the gap. Production-wise, I was quick to give this song to Zaman and Brandon who, together, are Zebrat (https://zebrat.bandcamp.com/). They create such gorgeous atmospheres and moods with their music that I knew they’d give this song the treatment it needed – Brandon’s bass on here is what dreams are made of. And that heavenly voice? Fatima Radics… just amazing!

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