If Ernest is not there to hear them, I must hear them myself, in his stead. If the one audience to whom these songs are perfectly pure and simple doesn't exist, then I, to whom they are complicated and ambiguous, must find something to take the place of his understanding smile. All of us, whoever chooses to hear this album, must pool our little epiphanies together, until we have replaced all the joy lost. Perhaps belief and reality are indistinguishable, or perhaps just telling a story is enough to make it true, or perhaps the secret to overcoming any grief is not to fight against it but to absorb it, turning its strength into your own. All progress is temporary, as are we.
Sadness is finite.
It can fill your life, or it can end as soon as you wish. So I half cry, half-smiling, and try desperately to figure out the difference.