[00:00.471]So the original album cover for this record was supposed to be a picture of Mercury’s back.
[00:06.040]Mercury is the Roman equivalent to the God Hermes.
[00:08.953]We found a picture of his back that we were gonna use.
[00:13.410]But I decided against it because it was hard to tell who he was and I thought it was important to me that he’d be someone recognizable, some recognizable features we’ll talk about it later.
[00:24.222]But originally it was Mercury’s back because I think it illustrated a statement or statements of this record on a couple of different levels.
[00:35.504]The first level for me, which is almost always personal is that I felt like if I’m being honest I’ve been chasing God all my life and can never quite catch him.
[00:45.457]And I found myself at a stage in life where this began to bother me, I felt like my whole life have been looking at God’s back like he’s always a couple of steps ahead of me and just when I think I haven’t figured it out, he seems to disappear.
[01:01.915]So the first reason to have Mercury on the cover is to begin this conversation.
[01:06.396]It's the beginning of a conversation I'm having with God essentially the record opens up with me.
[01:11.326]So I'm pointing at this picture and asking God something like, "So, is this you?"
[01:16.021]'Cause you know sometimes it certainly feels that way.
[01:21.326]I need a new religion, or a new lie.
[01:24.942]Or am I doing something wrong or what am I missing here?
[01:29.291]I've always felt like I was missing something.
[01:31.545]And it seems like it would be easy on Sundays just to lay down my ideas of God and move on.
[01:39.595]And many people don't do this because of some deep seeds of guilt or existential fears but for me, it's neither of these.
[01:47.853]There's just something beyond me that calls me out into "unknown", like a dream you feel when you wake up but you can't remember the details of the dream.
[01:57.550]Or when you have a word on the tip of your tongue that you can feel in your gut but you just can't immediately articulate it.
[02:04.387]Like I feel that and any time I try to simply put God away, this voice seems to reverberate throughout the universe, reminding me of my existential need for God.
[02:17.308]So I can't easily walk away from that.
[02:20.317]Obviously we're on the scratch and the surface here when it comes to a real conversation about faith.
[02:25.399]But I never wanted to do much more with this song.
[02:29.613]I never planned on resolving anything here but rather opening up the conversation on this record with this sort of questions and this sort of tension.