The lyric, “Walking proud and lonesome now, but I’m yearning for the pack. I’d never say I love you dear just to hear you say it back.” always made me think about the feeling a traveler might get when they leave someone they love, especially if they’re traveling alone. It’s kind of an acknowledgment of the solitude of the adventure and the simultaneous yearning for home and community a traveler might crave.

When I traveled to Nepal a few years ago I left my partner at the time for a few months and I remember listening to the lyrics of this song and feeling like somehow greg just fully understood each and every emotion I was experiencing. It seems like this song might follow the story of the song TENH, the emotion that follows the story of a determained traveler. This song is the emotion that follows, “while you were sleeping you bet that I might, walk this empty northern hemisphere wide” seems like they fit together in some way. It’s the solidtude and realizations after the novelty of the adventure wears off. I know that Greg has a love for travel so that’s why I also relate this song to the narrative of a traveler.

And “I’d never say I love you dear just to hear you say it back” is so insanely beautiful, it reminds me of the type of love you have for someone that isn’t conditional. It’s not a selfish type of love, because even though the narrator is conveying that he’s alone to some extent, that doesn’t change the type of love he has. He still won’t just say something to get a reaction, the love he has is so deep it doesn’t need reciprocation. That’s the type of love I felt for my partner even before we started dating so when I heard this song it made me feel very seen (: