How a Walk with Noodee Became Those Nights

A few people have asked where the idea for Isaac B. Cole’s new release “Those Nights” came from, and strangely enough it began during a morning walk with Noodee.

She loves her walks, but not really for the exercise. Noodee walks for the sensory experience. Every smell matters to her. Sometimes she’ll stop for a full minute in one spot simply taking everything in, and I never pull her away. I let her enjoy her moments because dogs seem to understand something about life that we often forget.

For some reason she also loves watching traffic. So we often walk up near the security gate where she can sit quietly and watch the cars pass by.

That morning the sun was intensely hot and I hadn’t taken a hat or sunglasses with me. But beneath the overhang of the hedgerow near the entrance there was this unexpectedly cool pocket of shade, and a soft breeze moving through the leaves. After the heat outside, it felt almost like a small blessing sitting there. Completely comfortable. Still. Quiet.

While Noodee sat there watching the world go by, my own mind started drifting, as it often does.

I began thinking about the strange way memory works. Some parts of life are decades behind us, yet emotionally they can still feel close enough to touch. Certain nights, certain people, certain feelings never entirely leave us.

And somewhere in that moment, two words arrived quietly in my mind:

“Those nights.”

Everything else slowly grew from there.

As the lyrics developed, I kept thinking about who could best carry that kind of reflection and emotional weight. After discussing it with Parichad, we both felt Isaac B. Cole had the deepest sense of character for a story like this.

I think most people reach a point in life where they realise the nights we remember most are rarely the ones we recognised as important at the time. They only reveal their meaning years later, quietly returning to us without warning.

That feeling became the heart of the song.

— Peter Pickering
Sessions on the Green