The Balloonist

This is part of a series of writings that takes some deep dives into my songs. People occasionally ask about the finer points of where these songs come from, so I thought it would be fun to provide that to any interested parties. "The Balloonist" was written in the latter days of 2012. This would have been right around the time I was discovering Mark Knopfler. Once you know that, you can tell exactly where a song like this comes from. Knopfler is incredibly adept at building quiet stories around quiet characters and making them land in fun, meaningful, and unexpected ways. A song like "Secondary Waltz" tells the story of a grade school class learning to waltz with a crazy instructor ("McIntyre's out of the army/you'll be slippered if you get it wrong"). It builds a funny, touching scene of a bunch of awkward kids trying to learn this skill under the pressure from this nutjob while also navigating it with members of the opposite sex. The story unfolds over several verses without any…