The Unwinding Cable Car

The second single from Anberlin's third album Cities finds Stephen Christian singing of somebody too fixed on worrying about the future rather than enjoying the present. Speaking in a 2012 interview, Stephen Christian told us he wrote the song in Seattle, Washington. He explained: "The message behind it was that there was somebody in my life that had it so very well, so well. But they couldn't see it. They were basically in such a turmoil to get to the future that they didn't realize what they had in the present. So instead of focusing on that, they focused on this internal self absorbed place that, instead of saying, 'Wow, I live in Seattle, Washington, I have this incredible job, I have these beautiful friends around me,' instead we're saying, 'I'm so scared of the future, I don't know what's going to happen, my life is horrible, I'm in such a dark place.'
"And it was just one of those moments where you just need to stop," he continued. "Just stop everything, take a giant step back and re-evaluate your life and what you have now and stop focusing on a future that no one can ever predict. No one can tell you what tomorrow brings, so why worry? Don't worry about tomorrow, you did that yesterday. That's the whole basis of the song."

This was originally written as a segue between two of the tracks on Cities, but Christian and guitarist Joseph Milligan liked it so much they turned it into an entire song.

The Walmart exclusive version of Anberlin's No Surrender album features an acoustic version of this song.