“We talk about the path
And we talk about discipline
And we talk about living clean
But it is not an easy path
It is filled with temptations
And pitfalls
And hazards
And traps
And it’s hard to stay on the path
It’s hard to stay on the path”

Usually, I know a song title immediately, but this one gave me pause. We Talk About The Path? It’s Hard? It’s Hard To Stay On The Path? 

I didn’t like the negative intonations of the latter. The former was wrong.

Still, upon its completion, the title revealed itself:

STAY ON THE PATH

Because that’s the message. STAY. ON. THE PATH. It’s hard, sure. But so what? You know what’s harder? Drifting from the path.

Sometimes I used to take the subway from Hollywood to my studio in downtown LA, and one day, I remember so clear, as clear as a unicorn’s tear, one day the elevator was broken. The platform was a festival crush of bodies, as a human traffic jam bottlenecked the stairs. Half a dozen steps up was the cause of the jam, a single, solitary human being, one human skeleton embedded in three hundred or more pounds of bad decisions, gasping, huffing, tears streaming down the balloons of her cheeks, literally dragging her own vast ass up the stairs with both hands.

Staying in shape can be hard. Exercising the discipline to eat the right foods can be hard.

But the alternative is way harder.

STAY ON THE PATH

This is my wife’s new favorite song. She said it didn’t just give her chills, it gave her some transcendent all-over body sensation. That’s a good review. I love the song very much, and I knew it was a special one the second it appeared to me, fully formed, as Jocko’s words sailed out of my speakers. The piano, the guitars, and the drums flowed out of my fingers with the same speed, and ease. Sometimes I have to hack away at the marble for a long time until the David inside reveals itself. This just poured out and assumed the correct form, like the water alien in James Cameron’s The Abyss. It was a dream song. It remains a dream song and shall exist as a dream song for all eternity.

STAY ON THE PATH

The single is out now on all platforms. And the music video can be enjoyed here.

The album is called WARPATH and it comes out on Meaningwave Records on November 1st.

You’re gonna love it.

LOVE TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!

AKIRA THE DON
DSPDC, Mexico, October ‘24