According to Gary, one of the key components of the album was the idea of love across time. "I haven't been in a relationship for a very long time, 10 years or more, so love at a distance for me means the way a relationship stays in your memory over a distance of, say, 10 years. That's not what I used to think of when I wrote about love. That is, when you're in love, you're standing in the lobby of the Empire State Building. When you break up with that person, you find yourself on the street. You can still see the building, but you're no longer in it. And when 10 years go by, you're already standing in Brooklyn looking at the Manhattan skyline."
That theme is touched on in lead single "The Beginning". "It's kind of a summation of this album," Gary continues. "It's a way of looking at the various mistakes, any pain I may have caused, from a place where nothing hurts anymore, except the memories when you bring them back into your mind. The memory itself is full of pain, but everything around it isn't. You're holding that fireball in your hand, but now you're wearing gloves."
