The Cerny Brothers, Robert and Scott, have a special relationship with concern. They have a special relationship with time and distance that affects how concerned they become. They longer they go on, the further they get from many of the people and places that they've known most intimately and that right there makes them worriers. They get worse and worse so they write about it. They hear a river rushing by and they get hung up on the lonely air that rolls along beside it. It all reminds them of where they're not. Their homes are always somewhere else - not where they are. The people that they love the most can form shapes and patterns in their heads, but they can't fill arms. These are people who are elsewhere and they find all of this to be incredibly painful.
The olden days speak to these native Illinois boys. They speak to them in the form of taunts, or achings - however they're seen. They seem to torture, but those memories are still treasured ones. The days of thinking about the Buckeye and Hawkeye states, the roads and the rivers that slips through them, the people they connect - they're all beautifully preserved in their minds and still they're untouchable.
Not all of the past is great. There was plenty of trouble, as they sing about it trying to rob them blind, but fondness for those difficult days increases gradually until the troubles are remembered more as blessings in disguise. It's as it, when the Cernys sing, "Times are tough/The wind is rough," the conditions are looked at in a positive way, like they've been looking for a reason to fly a kite or to go sailing. They've been looking for a reimagining - for some kind of bitter sweetness to stir into their drinks.