Story Behind the Song: Disappear

Cut by Bebo Norman on his record "Try". Download from itunes here.

This is my first blog about how a song came into being. Hopefully, it will give perspective and a little more meaning to the song as you listen. My good friend, Tony Wood says that every cut is a miracle and I would agree. I am grateful to be doing this for a living and am trying to make the very most out of the opportunity that's been given to me.

I have been writing for a publishing company called Brentwood Benson for almost 7 years. In the second year of my deal, I asked my publisher if I he would fly my out to Los Angeles to write with my brother Jess. Jess had been signed to Brentwood Benson for 3 years prior to me signing a publishing deal. When his deal was up, he felt called out to California to write pop music. He moved out there knowing very few people. He lived in a room in Santa Monica that felt like it was the size of a shoe box. I think it was a converted one-car garage with a bathroom added on. If you know my brother, he is a people person. He loves people so well. This was true of that season but I remember him being really lonely and down when I flew out there. I went with the expectation that we would take several days and try to write together. It turned into a trip that would only produce one song. It became more about loving my brother in the place where he was than about working. The one afternoon that we did write, we wrote this lyric:

Disappear
written by Jess Cates and Chad Cates

On a day like this
I want to crawl beneath a rock
A million miles from the world
The noise the commotion
That never seems to stop
On a day like this
I want to run from the routine
Away from the daily grind
That can suck the life
Right out of me
I only know of one place
I can run to

Chorus:
I want to hide in You
The Way, The Life, The Truth
And I can disappear
And love is all there is to see
Coming out of me
And You become clear
As I disappear

I don’t want to care
About earthly things
Be caught up in all the lies
That trick my eyes
That say its all about me
I’m so tired of it being about me

Bridge:
I would rather be a castaway
Separated from the Human Race
If I don’t bring you Glory
©2004 New Spring Publishing, Inc/ASCAP, Right Bank Music Inc./My Getaway Driver Music/ASCAP

Looking back, it has always been interesting to me that this song is a great picture of what was going on with Jess out there during that trip. When I got back to Nashville, I was almost apologetic to my publisher because they had paid for the trip and I only had one song to turn in and honestly, I didn't know how commercial it was. We ended up doing a demo in a female key and my sister, Laurianne sang the demo(and sang it great I might add). It may have been pitched to other artists around the time that the demo got done but I am not really sure.

I played the song for my good friend, Brandon Heath and he loved it. This was during the season that he was mainly doing Young Life Camps. He is good friends with Bebo and was the one that played it for him for the first time. It was so encouraging to get a song on songwriter's record and even more encouraging for him to single the song to radio. It went #1 during October of 2004.