CHAD: This song was inspired by a dream I had one night. A person showed up in my dream that I knew - an old friend I had lost many years ago. I couldn’t make out features or anything, but someone called them by name, or I wouldn’t have recognized her.

I remembered bits and pieces when I woke up, and had another realization - I hadn’t just lost someone that I cared about, but in the forty years since I’ve also lost the memory of her face, her voice, and the little details I thought that I’d always remember. I tried to remember, but everything had become softer over the years.

When Thea and I sat down with it, it needed a lot of work. There’s really no story in this song, but rather some realizations, and getting those into a cohesive structure that made sense was difficult. We had to change a lot, and remove thoughts that were repetitive, until we came to a final version that we both felt was strong enough.

I had originally called this “Erosion”, and had both “Softer” and “Erosion” in the song, and couldn’t decide which way to go. Thea and I both ended up agreeing that “Softer” was stronger - and, well, softer - than “Erosion”. I think that was definitely the right decision.

THEA: Yes, we made a lot of changes here, but not to the fundamental message Chad wanted to convey. We replaced some key words with better ones, added words to fill out the original phrases to make them land better, and removed a redundant verse…but before I even heard it the “softer” hook was in place, and there was no question in my mind what it really needed to be.

Chad is an excellent photographer (Instagram: @chad.fairbanks), so some of the imagery in the song reflects the language of photography, which I love; another thing I love about it is the recurring metaphor of fading memories as nature, for example: the smoothing of a stone from the motion of the sea, the fog diffusing our vision of details about someone we’re missing.

As is sometimes the case when we’re working with Suno, it takes more work than people probably imagine to get where we want to be—at least the way we use it. Once we determine where we want to end up, on a less-than-cooperative song it could take more than 100 “takes” to get there—typically, we are shifting and crafting lyrics and form and making musical decisions along the way (alternatively, sometimes it falls into place very quickly)—this particular song took between 100 and 200 takes to get it to sound the way we wanted…and we could have kept going, but we have learned when to stop.

This is such a unique topic, I think, and this is a nearly universal fear when people in our lives pass away: “I desperately want to hang on to what I have left of you, but I can feel my memories of you slowly slipping away.”

For me, this is my sister. I try to recall what it was like to be in a room with her…she was funny and generous and such a joy to be with, and I remember that she was—but I can’t see it in detail when I try. I only remember that she was. I can’t see her face clearly. I can’t hear her voice.

Maybe the lack of sharpness that develops over time is in part a natural response to pain, but it is a type of pain in itself. And so, we (primarily Chad) wrote “Softer” to give voice to that pain.