6. What I See

Cristian Velasquez & Ensemble perform “What I See” - 2025 LIU

Paul Gauguin, by most accounts I’ve read, seems like a genuine asshole. He had at least one teenage bride while away from his wife and nine children. That alone is plenty. Add to that the tone of his letters to Vincent, which often feel politely condescending in a way that’s somehow worse. (Not really…but he’s still a dick.)

I tend to picture him as a very specific type: the college fuckboi. Well dressed, or at least dressed expensively…ya know…Brooks Brothers pretending to be designer. Talented, undeniably. The kind of person who would be great if he were kinder, or more self-aware. But you’re the only one who sees the problem. Everyone else loves him.

You know the type. You’re probably thinking of him right now.
And yes…it’s almost always a him.

I wanted his first song to feel like a TED Talk about how impressive he is. What I See owes a lot to “Spirits in the Material World.” That song flips between a half-time reggae verse and a straight eighth-note driving chorus. I wanted to reverse that logic. Paul fires off his résumé at breakneck speed, then the chorus slows down so the room has to echo back to him how cool he is.

The piano figure in the bridge is a nod to “Worthless” from The Brave Little Toaster. There’s no deep reason.  I feel about it the same way Marge Simpson feels about potatoes: https://youtu.be/6_O-ZjEiU10?si=6uAXkf97MpA68sTW

This song lives or dies on the drummer. The looseness in the chorus and the locked-in precision of the verses have to coexist. I’ve been incredibly lucky there. Brett Beiersdorfer played it in the original 1.0 production and the concert that followed. Griffin McCarthy took it on in the LIU production, subsequent concerts, and this album. Both understood exactly how much discipline and how much swagger the song demands.  Killer musicians elevate music.