Answered by Nick: I like to be very careful when answering questions about specific songs and here is why: Personally I hate knowing what a song is "supposed to be about". I think it totally ruins the experience of listening to a song and completely disconnects the way the listener relates to a song if they hear what the artist "meant" in writing it. I know this isn't what you are asking here but I just want to explain why I answer these kinds of questions in a vague manner! :)
What I will do is give you the circumstances in which I wrote the song, and in this particular case I think they are kind of interesting.
I wrote the majority of Leaving the Hospital while I was actually in the USC's hospital in Los Angeles in 2006. I have to spend time in there every so often to receive IV antibiotics for a lung condition I have. In there the movie The Thin Red Line was on tv like twice a day for some reason. That's where I picked up the war theme at least. It seemed like a good metaphor for the stuff that people deal with when spending long periods of time in the hospital. I don't think I could even tell you how exactly I came up with that metaphor but I do know while I was writing the song it made perfect sense! The lyrics for this song really came together fast which is rare for me. Everything really clicked!
I wrote it as sort of a thank you to my girlfriend at the time for being there for me through the tough time. I have noticed since then I have been able to sort of dedicate this song to a number of different people. And when I say 'dedicate' I don't really mean saying "this song is for you!" Its more of a private, internal kind of dedication. I fell that in a situation like this you can pretty easily see who in your life truly cares about you. So for me this has sort of become the theme of this song, even though that wasn't fully intended when it was written. Certain people have really surprised me over the years and so I feel like this song is made for all of them. And even though it was originally written for a girlfriend I've been able to relate this song to completely different types of relationships over the years.
Also, this is sort of the song that helped to form The Dreamer and the Sleeper. At the time Easton and I were working on acoustic, solo music projects. I was having trouble working out the bridge for Leaving the Hospital so I sent it to Easton. About a day later he sends me back the song with the bridge you hear in it today. I think we were both pretty amazed at how well it worked out and we just sort of went with it from there!
