Uploaded September 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
From grief to beauty: here is the official music video for our new single, "Paulie of the Earth." A tribute to the life of Brendon's father, Paul Thomas.
Listen to "Paulie of the Earth" on Spotify:
tinyurl.com/ea65dp8r
🍁 🍁 🍁 🍁 🍁
Story behind the song, from Brendon:
Paulie of the Earth is about my dad, Paul Thomas. My mom and our family endearingly referred to him as Paulie much of the time. Paul passed away in May of 2020 after battling a rare lung cancer in spite of being an exceptionally healthy dude his entire life. It took us all by surprise and was hands-down the most devastating loss that I’ve endured.
It took months to write anything about it. When it came to writing a song for my father, I wanted to honor him in a way that spoke to who he was, and not what happened to him at the end. I wrote “Paulie” as a tribute my father at his most alive and vibrant. It’s about Paul in his early 20’s, breaking free from the restraints and trauma of his childhood in upstate New York and heading west for the wild spaces he dreamed of in Wyoming, Montana, Utah and Arizona. He was something like John Muir in the 70’s, in love with the earth and finding his place.
Nature and the outdoors were his sanctuary as a child. My aunts (his sisters) remember him drawing and reading for hours on end – learning as much as he could about animals, rocks, trees, plants, etc. He could identify anything we came across in the woods. He would catch snakes and snapping turtles and bring them home as temporary pets. When I was growing up in Vermont, we hiked a lot. The woods was our Sunday church and we knew we were always gonna learn something. To be in nature with Paul was to experience it on a deeper level.
In the time of his life that the song is referring to, Paul was a hiker, skier, kayaker, and artist based in Jackson Hole, WY — back when it was a cowboy/hippy small town. He and his friends would work through the winters at ski resorts and restaurants, then take out on epic river trips and National Park adventures. Paul got to know the land out there intimately and would often solo hike high into the mountains, collecting as many moose and elk antler sheds as he could carry out. He carved them into hyper realistic eagles, knife handles, and whatever else he could dream up. Eventually Paul’s three sisters all migrated west too, inspired by the beautiful adventures of their big brother, and took up permanent residence. In one of his first winters out west, he met my mom applying for a handyman job at a ski resort in Alta, Utah.
For “Paulie of the Earth” I wanted to revel in the joy of his life as a young man in those mountains. We recorded the song in our home studios, passing tracks around from New Hampshire (Brendon), to Connecticut (James), to Philly (Trevor), to Buffalo (Katie). Having recorded our last album “Night Is Alive” in the same fashion, we’d already found our stride in making music long-distance. I played acoustic guitar, bass, and arranged the percussion – a combination of cajon, foot stomps, light drums, tambourine and sleigh bells. James recorded piano and 12 string acoustic guitar. Trevor sent a scratch track of a lead guitar line, and he nailed it right out of the gate so we kept it. The harmonies were arranged by all three of us taking stabs at parts and piecing together what felt best. Once the harms were in place, our cellist Katie Weissman arranged strings. I mixed and Dave Downham at Gradwell House (Haddon Heights, NJ) mastered the song.
🍁 🍁 🍁 🍁 🍁
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From grief to beauty: here is the official music video for our new single, "Paulie of the Earth." A tribute to the life of Brendon's father, Paul Thomas.
Listen to "Paulie of the Earth" on Spotify:
tinyurl.com/ea65dp8r
🍁 🍁 🍁 🍁 🍁
Story behind the song, from Brendon:
Paulie of the Earth is about my dad, Paul Thomas. My mom and our family endearingly referred to him as Paulie much of the time. Paul passed away in May of 2020 after battling a rare lung cancer in spite of being an exceptionally healthy dude his entire life. It took us all by surprise and was hands-down the most devastating loss that I’ve endured.
It took months to write anything about it. When it came to writing a song for my father, I wanted to honor him in a way that spoke to who he was, and not what happened to him at the end. I wrote “Paulie” as a tribute my father at his most alive and vibrant. It’s about Paul in his early 20’s, breaking free from the restraints and trauma of his childhood in upstate New York and heading west for the wild spaces he dreamed of in Wyoming, Montana, Utah and Arizona. He was something like John Muir in the 70’s, in love with the earth and finding his place.
Nature and the outdoors were his sanctuary as a child. My aunts (his sisters) remember him drawing and reading for hours on end – learning as much as he could about animals, rocks, trees, plants, etc. He could identify anything we came across in the woods. He would catch snakes and snapping turtles and bring them home as temporary pets. When I was growing up in Vermont, we hiked a lot. The woods was our Sunday church and we knew we were always gonna learn something. To be in nature with Paul was to experience it on a deeper level.
In the time of his life that the song is referring to, Paul was a hiker, skier, kayaker, and artist based in Jackson Hole, WY — back when it was a cowboy/hippy small town. He and his friends would work through the winters at ski resorts and restaurants, then take out on epic river trips and National Park adventures. Paul got to know the land out there intimately and would often solo hike high into the mountains, collecting as many moose and elk antler sheds as he could carry out. He carved them into hyper realistic eagles, knife handles, and whatever else he could dream up. Eventually Paul’s three sisters all migrated west too, inspired by the beautiful adventures of their big brother, and took up permanent residence. In one of his first winters out west, he met my mom applying for a handyman job at a ski resort in Alta, Utah.
For “Paulie of the Earth” I wanted to revel in the joy of his life as a young man in those mountains. We recorded the song in our home studios, passing tracks around from New Hampshire (Brendon), to Connecticut (James), to Philly (Trevor), to Buffalo (Katie). Having recorded our last album “Night Is Alive” in the same fashion, we’d already found our stride in making music long-distance. I played acoustic guitar, bass, and arranged the percussion – a combination of cajon, foot stomps, light drums, tambourine and sleigh bells. James recorded piano and 12 string acoustic guitar. Trevor sent a scratch track of a lead guitar line, and he nailed it right out of the gate so we kept it. The harmonies were arranged by all three of us taking stabs at parts and piecing together what felt best. Once the harms were in place, our cellist Katie Weissman arranged strings. I mixed and Dave Downham at Gradwell House (Haddon Heights, NJ) mastered the song.
🍁 🍁 🍁 🍁 🍁
Subscribe to the TEOA PATREON for exclusive content!
patreon.com/teoamusic
Subscribe to our newsletter: tinyurl.com/TEOAnewsletter
Get TEOA merchandise: theendofamerica.bigcartel.com
Stream Anywhere: theendofamericamusic.com/music
Website: teoamusic.com
FB: facebook.com/teoamusic
IG: instagram.com/teoamusic | @teoamusic
