Florida-bred post-hardcore heroes Hot Water Music just released Live in Chicago, a two-CD and DVD set from the recharged band’s 2008 show five years ago at the Metro. Out on No Idea Records, the project is also available as a set of three vinyl LPs plus a download code. Now the band has shared an unfettered Metro take on “Better Sense,” a questioning, midtempo anthem from 1998’s Forever and Counting.
In a statement to SPIN, HWM frontman Chuck Ragan said he wrote the song at a time in his life when he was reading the work of environmentalist author Daniel Quinn. “As a result, I found myself constantly searching and yearning for an understanding of our human origins as well as what brought our culture to such a state of chaos where we’ve drifted away from a predominantly hunter gatherer lifestyle,” Ragan told us. “This song was written after hitchhiking home after a long night in the woods where I ditched my clothes, covered myself in mud to fend off mosquitos, climbed to the top of a live oak tree on Paynes Prairie till the sun came up and pondered the reasons and ways where humans started to live more as takers than leavers.”
Ragan continued: “I’m glad no one stole my clothes. It would have made hitching home quite a bit more awkward.”
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