Back Of My Hand

Album: Forever Endeavour (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • Several of the songs on Forever Endeavour, including this one, were inspired by a health scare Sexsmith had in 2011 when doctors discovered a lump in his throat. As a result when penning the songs for the album mortality was top of mind. "As you get older and more of these things happen, you realize that it's always coming for us and that one day the news won't be good news," he told Spinner. "It's funny - I had already snuck in some songs about death."
  • Sexsmith told the story of the song to CBC Music. "I wrote this initially as a really slow waltz, and I just thought I have too many slow songs on this record, and I wanted it to be more lighthearted," he explained, "so I turned it into the song you hear now. It's mainly about the feeling of déjà vu. I'm walking around and everything felt like I'd been there before, and I kept running into people that had been on my mind, and they would come up and say something really nice to me. I thought, 'Why is everyone being so nice to me, is this what dying feels like?' It was just an odd sensation I had, so I wrote this and turned it into a Beatles-y record."

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