“Maytime” is a title I had written first written down about five years ago. It came from a chapter title (“The Maytime Witch”) in The Swell Season by Josef Škvorecký. I had often thought it would be a romantic love song, but it turned out to be a platonic one.

I knew friendship was one of the central themes on the album, and I’d always wanted to write a song about my friends using their nicknames (à la Springsteen or Hamell on Trial)...