Wasn’t It Pretty

Wasn't It Pretty arrived during one of the biggest transitions of my life. Blue Print had come to a close, my wife and I were raising two young daughters, and I had just begun what would become a lifelong Sunday residency at McGurk's Irish Pub in St. Louis. Rather than making another full-length record, I wanted to create something smaller and more immediate—a solo EP that captured where I was as a songwriter.

Returning to Wil Reeves at Centro Cellar Studio in Columbia felt like coming home. We'd recorded every Joe Stickley's Blue Print album there, and this time I had the freedom to experiment, playing drums myself and bringing in musicians whose voices fit the songs perfectly. Andrew Weir added keyboards, Kevin Buckley brought fiddle to "Tumblin' Baby," and Justin Enoch, one of my students, recorded the trumpet part on "Going Home."

The title came from the closing line of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises: "Isn't it pretty to think so?" That bittersweet idea—that some places, moments, and seasons of life can't last forever—captured exactly what I was feeling. Looking back, Wasn't It Pretty still feels like the bridge between one chapter of my life and the next.