This is the first installment of a collection of love songs I've written over a period of about 15 years. For this EP, I tried to pick songs from each stage of my song-writing evolution. Given that the songs were inspired during very different stages of my life, I'm surprised how well these five songs actually ended up hanging together. Each song, in its own way, tries to capture the way that joy and pain often inhabit the same relational space.

A song like "Beautiful" that seems really simple and joyful still has an element of meloncholy in its premise. The title track, "Forever," is probably the closest to a purely hopeful love song. But, the intensity of the passion in the song stems from the precarious nature of the conversation that is taking place. The promise of committed, unconditional love is being offered, but it's not really clear if the offer is taken. This dynamic is even more overt in "If Only You," which is the oldest song on the EP and, therefore, projects some of the angst left over f