Soft hearts don't remain very long
Sharp minds don't stay sane very long
And all the wide-eyed wonder in the world won't be enough
To help me find the silver lining in the rain very long
Heroes don't prevail very long
Kind winds don't fill the sails very long
And when this hellish forest highway diverges into unmarked paths
It's hard to hold the tried and true and tested trail very long
But there are moments
Bright and incorruptable
Where the promise of a better world
Flashes in an innocent eye
There are moments
There's something indestructible
It hangs like a brazen, grand banner
Under a clearing sky
Once in a while
On the crest of a crashing wave
I can see the storm cloud's edge
And almost reach out and touch
The crimson clouds on the edge of evening
Evening is a short, mellow, reflective acoustic ballad that serves as a sort of bridge between the dark, cynical, lamentful material that precedes it and the triumphant affirmation of hope and possibility that follows. Though incredibly simple, it contains what I feel are among some of my best, most concise but poetic lyrics. There's an elemental aspect to the imagery at work - references to rain, wind, forests, clearing skies, crashing waves and crimson clouds - that, in retrospect, probably draws on my early love for "naturalist" writers like Thoreau and Emerson in school.
The version of the song present on the album differs significantly from how it was initially conceived. I'd originally intended for it to be a full band number with a piano solo in the mid section, as reflected in the live performance of it we have up on our YouTube channel (and in the archive on this site) from 2017. But with strict time constraints in place during the sessions, The View From Olympus producer Kyle Barnes & I opted for a condensed, minimal, "man-and-a-guitar" approach. The result ended up being quite lovely - a perfect contrast from the bombast that defines the rest of the record - and is unique in the GWN discography. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about revisiting the song to try and capture my original vision for it from time to time.