 The second layer focuses on the songs as individual short stories or small vignettes, the subjects of which form various fragments of the author's reality.The album ends as it starts, with the nameless author continuing to type away at his novel that will never be completed.Singer and lyricist Jonathon Newby said his major influences on the album were Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Mark Smith, Captain Beefheart, Bob Dylan, and the poetry of Edward Gorey.