In the late 90’s and early 2000’s I was gigging a lot all over Southern California. On this particular day I had left early for a gig in Santa Barbara in a restaurant across from a really scenic bird sanctuary. I had some time to kill so I took my guitar and and some manuscript paper to a bench in this park and wrote this tune in one sitting. Nigel was our somewhat skittish Golden Retriever/ Collie mix that joined our family in the early 90’s. My parents have a little vacation house in Western Massachusetts and on a walk one day, Nigel was spooked by some thunder and bolted into the woods. He was gone for three weeks. We were very worried and eventually a neighbor called and said he’d returned. We always wondered what life was like for him in those three weeks and what kind of adventures he had gotten into. Luckily he returned (albeit much thinner) and lived happily for the remainder of his life with my parents. So this one goes out to Nigel, who was a very good boy!
