My part in »The Letters« started with Leonard sending a finished or nearly finished lyric to me, as was the case with most of the songs on Ten New Songs. I then studied the lyric to find clues to mood, tempo and form. The rest of the process of writing this particular song is a little hard to remember, which tells me that it was one of those that falls out of the sky. Thankfully, that happens sometimes. It makes up for the ones you slave over. I did a reference vocal and we lived with it for a while. The track seemed to demand to be left alone, unadorned, allowing entry into the room, into the story. Leonard liked my vocal very much, and after experimenting with several approaches to the vocal, he decided it should be a duet.

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