My wife, Robin, and I were driving through Sacramento looking for a particular Indian restaurant that someone told us about. We were just heading home from a four-day church conference and looking for an early dinner before getting on the road. We’d just been to the worship service at the end of the conference where people from a bunch of churches fill this big hall and sing their hearts out and combined choirs perform magnificent anthems. Now, Robin is one who wants to know that when she goes out to eat, her place at the table is set when she walks in. She doesn’t like to wait. She wants me to get off the road, find a pay phone at some gas station somewhere, call the restaurant and make a reservation for half an hour later. I say, “Sweetheart, it’s 4 o’clock on Sunday. They’re not going to be busy. I want to just drive there and walk in.” This was the 1980s, before cell phones, so we couldn’t just call from the car. We go back and forth about this while I’m driving and she really wants me to get off the road and hunt up a pay phone and I really do not want to get off the road and finally I say, “I’ve called ahead to heaven, that’s all the calling ahead I need to do!” So, that’s where the idea for this song came from. Of course, there’s a lot more in the song than just that, but mainly it’s for fun.

“I See Your Skin” is an ode to falling in love with someone who fills you up and wrings you out. Robin and I weren’t young together, we were both knocking on 40 when we met, but we were ready for that second act in which you can put it all together and your life just sings out in a way it never has before. And once that happens, it never really goes away, no matter what. I can instantly recall those days of utter fascination with touching and feeling and being through the window of this song.