Unexpected Success

And just as Graham has learned how giving up career goals enables him to achieve ones he never imagined, a similar epiphany has happened with his songwriting. "I went through a thing when I was younger of trying to write songs, and it just never worked for me. The harder that I tried to write songs, the worse they were." Now, instead of trying to write, he just lets the writing happen. "The songs announce themselves," he says. "I'll be driving or I'll be sitting at home or wake up in the middle of the night, and there it will be. Not the whole song, but there will be..." Graham pauses and thinks. "It's like a visitor that just shows up at the house, and you go, 'Oh, this song is gonna be about this' or 'this song is gonna be called this.'

"It sounds so gay, but it's like -- I don't know who said this -- the songs are out there. We're just catching them. It's all we're doing. That's not to say that I don't spend a lot of time working on them, or chasing 'em. But when they're ready to be caught, they're there. It's that Michelangelo thing about chipping away everything that doesn't look like the horse."

To complete the cycle, Graham is now happily remarried and just days away from the birth of his second child. No wonder he has gone from catching songs with such titles as "Faithless" and "Wave Good-bye" to tunes called "A Place in the Shade" and "Big Sweet Life." His life, career and even music have all gone from sad and defeated to joyful and contented.

"My ideas for where I was going and what was gonna be happening were pretty limited," says Graham. "And what ended up happening is way better than anything I could have dreamed up. So I'm just trying to enjoy it.