"Freedom from the Fever" is a good song, but I'm not in love with this arrangement of it. Or maybe this performance of the arrangement. Or maybe I'm just still hung up on the original version from 1995, with percussion and a second guitar and all. It's an anthemic song and it deserves a full treatment but I don't feel I compensated for all that with intensity here, which was probably my only option to make this song work with the sparse sound of the album. I do seem to remember having to record this one over and over again trying to get it right. So I may have finally done so, but wore myself out in the process, or maybe I just declared victory and got the hell out. I'm not sure, but this one I don't love like the others on the album. Still, a lot of people have told me this is their favorite on the album, so maybe I'm being hard on myself again.

I'm pretty sure this one is from 1995 because it was around that time I'd discovered esotericism through the writings of Vernon Howard, and became aware for the first time that my mind was constantly on fire with inane, critical chatter, making me miserable.

That realization made me desperate for peace of mind and clarity, and I set out as best I could to study more esoteric works and continue to dispassionately observe myself in order to gain freedom from the feverish babblings of my unconscious, false self.

It took several years, but my mind is a much, much less cluttered, frantic place than it was then. Now if I can only work on the feverish, inane babblings of my actual mouth...

I do like the triumphant little interlude at the very end of this version, which, to me, represents the inevitable victory over the confused mind. Still thematic, there's no more loner-ish occupation than self-improvement.