The one that found people

Every songwriter I know has the same quiet experience eventually: the song that connects is not the one you'd have picked.

For me it's "Slow Like Sundays." I wrote it without any particular ambition for it. It's a slow, unhurried thing about a day with nothing in it — coffee going cold, nobody needing anything, the specific luxury of an afternoon you don't have to spend. I liked it. I did not think it was the one.

It's become the song people actually keep. Not the biggest number on a dashboard, but the one with the best version of the number that matters: people save it, and they come back to it. That's a different signal than a big first week. A save is somebody saying I want this again later.

I've thought about why, and the best I've got is that it isn't trying very hard. Most of what I write is doing something — building to a chorus, landing a hook, getting a room going. That one just sits there and lets the afternoon happen. Turns out there's an appetite for that which I badly underestimated.

The lesson I keep having to relearn: you don't get to decide which of your songs is the good one. You get to write them and then find out.

If it's already yours, thank you. If not, it's the one to put on a slow morning.