Often, when writing a song, I would prop a photograph or a painting in front of me for atmospheric inspiration. Such was the case with the song James plucked off my 1999 CD THE DEAD SWIM. For that song I used a painting called THE WATCHMAKER by surrealist painter Remedios Varos to inspire. Obviously, the subject matter of the painting does not match that of my song, but the feeling the image gave me, and the imagined tick, tick, tick, surrounding this solitary figure alone with her creations, was all I needed to open a window into my head at that moment.