The title of “Things Feel Different” might refer to the rough go we’ve had over the last couple of years, but it might as well refer to the guitar solo Randy Colwell rips across the song. “Things Feel Different” stands out as a highlight on their upcoming self-titled album.
That edge gives “Things Feel Different” a layer of complexity. Rather than the typical lament for a year indoors, Cut, Split & Delivered starts the song as “self-reflective meditation on the weight of loneliness,” but comes out the other side with a very different tone—largely thanks to Colwell.
“I wrote this song before the Covid-19 lockdowns at a time when I didn’t know a lot of people in the Lunenburg area but finally made some great friends,” says songwriter Wanda Baxter. “It weirdly resonates with the isolation and then relief of seeing people we’ve all felt over the last couple of years. ‘Things Feel Different’ is about how much my life changed as I got to know more people here and reconnected with people from the past, and it’s a song of gratitude that that intense period of loneliness ended.”
The change reflected over the course of the “Things Feel Different” is palpable. Aside from confidently describing this moment as a highlight of their entire album, it is what songwriter Wanda Baxter describes as an “inspired ‘dog-running-down-the-beach’ guitar solo.”
“CS&D arrange all of our songs collectively. One person writes the bones of the song and then we all jam it out together and add our own parts,” explains Baxter. “When we were arranging ‘Things Feel Different’ I kept feeling like I wanted a different sound other than the slide guitar Randy was adding, and as soon as he started adding the mandolin, it was just what I wanted. I also wanted something joyful and electric to shift at the end of the song to sound the change of tone and the hopefulness that came with people coming into my life.
“I described it to Randy as wanting a ‘dog-running-down-the-beach solo. Just run with it,’ and that’s what he did. It’s a musical moment that makes me smile every time I hear it.”
At the heart of the song, however, is more than simply a rip-roaring good solo. It may be reflective of the change that’s come, but that solo really represents overcoming the loneliness and isolation found during a quarantine lockdown.
For Baxter, it seems that overcoming that isolation had a lot to do with the band itself.
“Cut, Split and Delivered is like a close-knit extended family after playing many years together,” says Baxter, “And this song also acknowledges how much they mean to me; and how playing music with them makes life better.”
Cut, Split and Delivered’s self-titled album is scheduled to be released on October 15, 2021.