Real Eyes started with a slightly different center than the song people hear now.
When Kristie first brought the idea in, she wanted the chorus to say:
Semper Fi. Do or die.
She liked semper fidelis for its literal meaning: always faithful.
And she liked that the phrase carried more than one meaning.
A runner can be faithful to the run.
A service member can be faithful to country and duty.
We can be faithful to a calling, a purpose, a belief, or simply to that unseen thing inside us that says, keep going.
For Kristie, running was a big part of it.
She wanted to write a song she would enjoy running to. Something with enough drive that, when the body started asking whether it was really going to finish, the music could answer:
Yes. We are.
Come hell or high water, keep moving.
As the song developed, the chorus shifted toward the idea of realization, giving the song another layer.
Close your eyes. Free your mind. Real eyes.
The emphasis shifted. Instead of only being faithful to that unseen force, the song began asking us to recognize that it was there at all.
But the music never lost the original determination.
Looking back now, we can hear both ideas in the finished song: the force that moves us forward, and the awareness that lets us recognize what is moving us in the first place.
We didn’t know it then, but that question feels surprisingly close to where JETTER is headed now with REVERENCE.
Some of the most powerful things in a life have no shape at all.
Maybe part of living well is learning to notice them.
JETTER
