“East of Eden by Steinbeck is one of my favorite books of all time. I’ve read it and re-read it several times, and I found an old dog-eared copy of it somewhere and I said, “Oh, man, I wish I could read this again.” The next day I was reading on the Internet about Iraq veterans returning, and Iraq, traditionally and mythically speaking, is where the Garden of Eden was supposed to be. I thought, “These guys are returning to the United States from somewhere east of Eden.” And that phrase just struck in my head. And I read about this one particular guy who pulled this Iraqi family from a burning wreck, and he was never able to quite recover from it. He was like a master of war, but when he got home he barely could find any work. So that spurred that particular song.”Joe Grushecky (208)

“I was working in the inner city for years teaching what they call “social emotional support” to kids now. So, kids with bad behaviors. But I’ve worked with everything from autistic kids to schizophrenics to Down syndrome to post-traumatic stress kids to bipolar kids. So quite a history of working with kids who need a lot of help. So that inspired that song. One of the kids and I had was the inspiration for that.”Joe Grushecky (208)