3x5

"3x5" is a song that I finished right around the time that Room For Squares was being recorded, and even though it was 99% done, that 1% was figuring out the right way to play it. 

It's just about not always trying to synthesize memories from a trip. [If a] dude asked me five years ago would you rather take a $3,000 trip or take a thousand dollars in cash, I woulda been like, cash baby, cash. Sometimes trips are better than money. Nobody else would have gotten the same kick or the same thrill that you did, but it's the confidence that you have seen some beautiful stuff.

I think for me, I've always tried to be the historian, but the problem in trying to be your own future historian is that you miss what is going on.

3x5, I'm on the fence about. I think if we leave it off, it'll be a better song a year from now.

"3x5" is a better song than my ability to write a song. And when that happens, they're just presents from somewhere. And you just respect them as best you can, and make sure you don't ever stand on stage and sing it with any less passion than you really, really can. Cause they could have been anyone's songs and you happened to find 'em. So yeah. "3x5."

I wrote this song in what used to be—cause I looked for a picture, and I think they condemned it—what used to be the Post Apartments in Duluth by the Pleasant Hill Mall. Wasn't much. The rugs would stain just from lookin' at 'em. Just [sputters air]—rugs get dirty. They didn't Scotchgard. I wrote this there, for my first record.

I talked about 3x5 to someone the other day — I'm lying to you, I said it into a microphone. I was prerecording an intro to 3x5. That song was brought back by fans who really loved it. I would have probably said, like, well, it's from the first record, let's do some other stuff. And sometimes people requesting songs of me is a really good way to remind me that I'm a little too quick sometimes to put things in the dugout and not bring them out again. So that was actually a really great part of the solo tour, is to see, what are the song people want the most? I like it more knowing that it's that desired to be heard.