Wendy and Peter:

My family and I were staying at the Pop Century Resort at Walt Disney World. It's on the lower end of the Disney resorts, price-wise, but some of my fondest memories are of being there together, playing in the pool or eating dinner in the cafeteria.

I had taken my ukulele instead of my guitar due to space restrictions. We had driven from Ohio to Florida in our minivan with another family.

One afternoon, we were in our room getting ready to head to the computer pool. It's a pool with a large replica of a laptop hanging from a nearby building.

I was strumming the Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Scar Tissue." That song goes: F - C - Dm, but then I added A7/C7 as the last chord in the progression, which changed the feeling. A7 didn't do it. Neither did C7. It needed the combo.

The mermaids and the pirates haven't captured me so far
I've invited this invasion, you stand here by my side
With your ribbons and your thimbles and your eyes filled up with stars
I look at you with wonder, and now I realize

With your gentle hands, warm as sand,
You sooth the frightened child
Your delicate smell and your mannerisms
Threaten my untamed wild

When you come near my instinct is to run...

We had just just ridden Peter Pan's Flight, based on the 1953 Disney cartoon version of Peter Pan. That version of the story is lighthearted and full of adventure.

But it doesn't really capture the conflict that Peter feels about Wendy: he's fascinated by her and drawn to her femininity, but he has no intention of giving up his boyish wildness and freedom. 

The 2003 version does capture that, along with bittersweet feeling of the unfinished bonus-feature ending, from J.M. Barrie's original book and play, where Peter comes back to the nursery to find things have changed.

Anyway, I wanted to get some of that conflict into my song. I was 30 when when my wife and I got married. A few years later, I had just bought this really cool shark kite that I planned to fly as soon as possible when my wife showed me the double lines of our pregnancy test. Clearly, I had some growing up to do.

The indians and the fairies are calling me to play
And I'm thinking up excuses for the first time in my life
In the morning you say you're leaving, inside I'm begging you to stay
But I won't grow up, you can't fill me up with your husbands and wives

With your gentle hands, warm as sand,
You sooth the frightened child
Your delicate smell and your mannerisms
Threaten my untamed wild

When you come near my instinct is to run...

Standing there in our Disney hotel room, we had two little girls and my wife was pregnant with our little boy. Like Peter looks at Wendy, I am in awe of my wife's intelligence, hard work, sweetness and thoughtfulness. I guess all of those things came together at the right time. 

I needed an ending, so I borrowed one of the best ever:

Wendy, tramps like us, baby we were born to run...