How did I come into the world; why was I not asked, why was I not informed of the rules and regulations, but thrust into the ranks as if I had been forced by a Seelenverkopper? …Where is the manager, I would like to make a complaint! — Søren Kierkegaard, Repetition (as translated by M.G. Piety)

And you may ask yourself, ‘Well, how did I get here?’ — Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime

The Seelenverkopper — soul seller — of Kierkegaard’s Karen-esque complaint was an innkeeper who sold his grog-sodden customers to a ship’s captain in need of a crew. Anyone who could lean into a hawser was worth few kroner. Life — the italicized version — too often invokes the sensation of having regained consciousness on a pitching deck, surrounded by strangers, holding a rope attached to nothing.

But the issue of How did I get here? cannot be addressed until one knows the identity of I and the location of here. Cowboy Grizzly searches for that existential underpinning with ‘Who Are You?’ and ‘I’m Not Sure Quite Yet.’ And while the queries may disappear — unanswered — into the wind, there is at least some comfort in knowing that the right questions have been asked.

In ‘Who Are You?’ everyperson looks into the mirror and seeks solace from the stranger who stands on the other side of the glass. The song breathes life into itself slowly; the first chord isn’t struck ’til the twenty-second mark. Listen as individual words become bars and the basic riff shifts through the keys and minors grow into majors.

Will you help me?
Will you find peace?

Who am I?
Who are you?

‘I’m Not Sure Quite Yet’ takes on the where of the matter as we attempt to fit a crudely-cropped selfie into a site map of our own psyche. The track rocks with the sense of one desperately seeking something while our head is encased in a cloud of harmonies.

What is this place?
Why am I here?
I see a face
Hidden by the years

Cowboy Grizzly is Grant McMahan of Austin TX. Today’s tracks appear on his fantastic new eleven-song album, Growing Pains. We’ve been fans of Grant since the release of his first LP, Mockingbird, which was our Album of the Year back in 2018. Growing Pains was produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered by Simeon Williams – aka Wild Daydream — whose ‘Another Sunny Day’ was our previous song of the day.

Cowboy Grizzly’s music is available on Bandcamp, Spotify, and Apple Music. And be sure to follow Cowboy Grizzly on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.