Rising Waters Back Story
Some songs don’t start with a melody. They start with a problem you can’t quite hold.
Rising Waters was written as a poem in 2020—when everything felt unstable at once. COVID, riots, collapsing systems, and in Michigan, a dam failure that quietly erased a town from the map. I tried writing about it directly and failed every time. It all came out sounding like noise… or worse, preaching.
The breakthrough came when I stopped trying to explain it—and let the devil speak instead.
Writing from that perspective unlocked something uncomfortable. It removed the need to point fingers and replaced it with something colder: rejoicing. Not in chaos itself, but in how easily people drift into it. The voice of the song doesn’t force anything. It just watches, nudges, and benefits. That shift made the events feel less like accidents… and more like conditions being cultivated, then exploited.
The structure follows that descent—ankle deep, knee deep, belt buckle, shoulder, drowning. At first, it’s manageable. Then it’s inconvenient. Then it’s too late. The turning point isn’t the flood—it’s the moment people stop resisting it. When dissent is choked. When institutions collapse under their own weight. When the water is already at your shoulders and you’re still convincing yourself it’s fine.
There’s a line near the end that captures the whole thing:
“I’ll take it all and call it fair / to sell you your own breath of air.”
It’s not about one event. It’s about the feeling that something essential—something as basic as breath—can be controlled, packaged, and handed back at a cost… and that people will accept it.
Rising Waters isn’t trying to tell you what to think. But if it does its job, it might leave you with something harder to ignore:
That evil isn’t always loud.
It doesn’t always force your hand.
Sometimes it just waits…
—and benefits from the moment you decide not to act.
Having personally immersed myself in creative writing during turbulent times, I find 'Rising Waters' resonates deeply with the experience of processing overwhelming events through art. The method of letting the 'devil speak'—allowing a detached, almost cold perspective—can be incredibly freeing when direct confrontation with heavy topics leads to frustration or cliches. It’s a technique I’ve experimented with, finding that embodying a character or voice separate from oneself helps to reveal uncomfortable truths without becoming preachy. The gradual escalation in 'Rising Waters' from ankle-deep to drowning powerfully mirrors how societal crises often unfold: at first, they seem manageable, then increasingly disruptive, until finally, resistance fades and collapse seems inevitable. This progression is not just a metaphor for natural disasters but also for political and social upheavals, where denial and apathy allow destructive forces to gain ground. The lyric, "I’ll take it all and call it fair / to sell you your own breath of air," encapsulates the insidious nature of commodifying essential resources that should be free and common. This is especially relevant today, reflecting broader concerns about how crises can be exploited for profit or control. It reminds me of ongoing debates about water rights, air quality, and environmental justice, where basic needs become divisive issues. Lastly, the idea that evil sometimes waits silently for inaction to benefit challenges us all to remain vigilant and active. From personal experience, I've learned that small acts of awareness and resistance can help prevent the slide from inconvenience to crisis. 'Rising Waters' serves as a poignant reminder that sometimes the most dangerous threat is complacency itself, a warning delivered not loudly but with a cold, quiet gaze.
https://open.spotify.com/track/4ll2gkNelFUrgLzYbVWIk7?si=fUd-vDFjSdGWyYgUujxZxA