Did I write a song about East of Eden?
I'm not sure. That's what this post is about.
The song is called "East of Eden", the refrain uses the title, but the correspondence between the lyrics and Steinbeck's source material is hazy at best (or foggy, if you want a Central Coast analogy).
I live in Monterey County, between the Gablina and Santa Lucia mountain ranges. I spend a lot of time driving through the Salinas Valley, commuting between Carmel Valley and San Francisco. I've been writing music for several decades, mostly on the East Coast in Boston and Brooklyn, mostly horribly. This is the first time I've written in and about California.
Previously, I wrote in the footsteps of bands I loved, trying to catch up to them --- and failing.
This past year, I've written without an agenda, with just a guitar and a view of the Santa Lucia mountains out my window. And a copy of East of Eden.
My first impression of the novel wasn't great. It felt heavy-handed and sermonizing (it's drawn from the Cain and Abel story, after all) but I was soon captivated by the great sense of sorrow and regret that permeates the book --- and this line in particular:
"Some people think it’s an insult to the glory of their sickness to get well."
For me, this is the perfect description of depression, something I used to write about directly. Steinbeck gets at the root of its mysterious staying power. Sometimes we don't want to get well because we feel we don't deserve it or because we've constructed an altar out of our sadness and it becomes something worshipful, something we must tend to and revere.
I guess I had this in mind when I started writing. I'm trying to make sense of the lyrics that came out in the process. Some are heavy-handed and none show the depth of Steinbeck of course. But the landscape and the themes are in there. It's a song about East of Eden.
The song is about someone (loosely based on Adam Trask) who wanders through life, before finding himself mentally, spiritually and relationally imprisoned by someone who couldn't care less about him (and doesn't even know his name).
It's not a 1:1 mapping of the book of course. The dates are mixed up, the setting is misplaced about 50 miles. But the landscape kinda shoved its way into the writing process.
The Netflix series
Netflix will release a new adaptation of East of Eden in October 2026, starring Florence Pugh. If you're here because you searched for East of Eden songs or the Netflix soundtrack, welcome.I wrote my song several months before I knew the miniseries was in production. I hope the show will be good and I hope my song finds someone who likes it. That's all I can hope for I guess.
The song is called "East of Eden" by Who by Water. You can find it on Spotify, Apple Music, and wherever you listen.