“The song is about people having to leave the place where they live. I figured I would do it historically. So the first verse is about ancient times, the second verse is sort of depression times in America, and the final verse would be Pittsburgh today [late 80s – Ed]. Which was, at that point, about steel mills closing and people leaving.”Jules Shear (233)

“There was a movie I saw and there was this scene of a farmer and his wife working out in the field. She is running this thresher, and she falls back into the thresher in slow motion. And he is in the field, and he turns around and watches this happen. And I used that. I figured that “Healing Bones” would be the story of that guy and what happens to him, and his reaction to this happening.”Jules Shear (234)

“There wasn’t a real minister’s daughter. I wrote the song in Todd Rungren’s guest house in Woodstock. I’d been driving around, and there were all these old churches so I got the idea to write something about someone who lived up there where Todd lives. I had never been there before so it was kind of a raw impression of something that might go on.”Jules Shear (235)