Thanks for the listens and comments, everyone.
Yes, the lyrics are semi-autobiographical. I met my wife while attending university in a large city, and there were a few hit-and-miss encounters, including on public transportation, before we finally connected. Those were lonely but hopeful days, and I think it turned out well in the end.
About the drums, let me describe the workflow and that will answer questions from two comments above. The drums were performed by Tom on the Roland synth, and sent to me as a single stereo track. I wanted to liven it up a little bit -- make it a little more organic sounding -- so I ran it through a multiband compressor to isolate the snare frequencies as much as possible, and ran the result through an amplifier with a 12" speaker that had an actual snare drum strapped to it, and recorded it with a microphone near the snare. Then I removed the multiband compressor on the original track and mixed the two tracks together. The result is interesting, and certainly more organic-sounding than the original. The multiband compressor didn't perfectly isolate the snare, so the snare drum reacted somewhat to the toms and kick drum in the track. The same thing would happen to some extent in an acoustic kit, so I didn't bother too much about it. I suppose I could ask Tom for the midi version of his drum performance and isolate the snare from that -- I would get a cleaner or more isolated snare sound from doing it that way.
My daughter wanted a happy ending to the story, but it felt more impactful to leave the tension unresolved.
@Michael Willis: that Roland would be a fun tool to play with. You should get it!
I like the arrangement, composition and performance and solos. Nice screamin' guitar tone near the end of the song!
