There are moments in life that carve themselves so deeply into memory they never leave. For Jeff and his at the time girlfriend Erin, one of those moments came on what was supposed to be an ordinary hike. Jeff wasn’t a casual trail wanderer; he was a serious hiker, the kind who knew knots, ropes, terrain, and how to read the mountain. Erin trusted him. And yet, even with all that knowledge, one slip nearly changed everything.
No one really knows how it happened. Maybe the ground gave way, maybe their steps landed wrong, maybe the mountain simply reminded them how small they really were. What we do know is this: in a heartbeat, they were dangling on the edge of a cliff, their lives literally held in a grip that could have failed. It was a brush with death that could have ended differently, but didn’t.
The Birth of “The Cliff”
From that terrifying day came words that would turn into one of Jeff’s most haunting songs. The opening lines weren’t just lyrics; they were his lived reality:
“Into this cliff I stare at death,
my life you hold in your hand.
If your grip should come undone,
I’ll plummet to the sand.”
This wasn’t pulled from imagination. It was his account of clinging to life by someone else’s strength, of staring into the void and realizing how fragile everything is.
Love on the Edge
But “The Cliff” wasn’t only about survival on the mountain. Beneath the surface, it was also about survival in love. As Jeff wrote more, the chorus shifted into something deeper, something personal:
“We’ve broken down.
Why aren’t we strong?
Can’t find your palm,
and now I’ve fallen.”
In those lines, the physical act of slipping from Erin’s hand became a metaphor for their relationship unraveling. What began as a song about almost dying on a cliffside transformed into a song about the collapse of a young relationship that, at the time, felt serious and consuming.
Storytelling Beyond Our Years
When Jeff wrote this, we, as his bandmates, didn’t realize just how much weight those lyrics carried. We were maybe in our early twenties, new songwriters still learning how to shape emotion into music. Back then, it felt like an intense story turned into a song, raw and gripping. But as the years have passed, we’ve come to hear it differently.
What Jeff captured in “The Cliff” wasn’t just youthful energy or dramatic imagery; it was storytelling that reached far beyond where we were in life at the time. His words now resonate with us in ways we couldn’t have imagined back then. We didn’t just watch Jeff survive that hike; we witnessed him transform it into art that still echoes with meaning decades later.
A Song That Became Our Compass
We only ever played The Cliff as The Epimeres, never as Down on Jane. By the time Scott moved to Jane Street, Jeff had left the band to pursue other interests, and with his departure, the song left the stage with him. We never played it live again after that.
But The Cliff never really disappeared. In 2024, Jeff and I recorded a somewhat polished demo version. Sure, it’s got its roughness, but it carried Jeff’s words forward, though it leaned on programmed drums from Logic and missed the soft jazzy of Scott’s original solo. I filled in with a rawer solo of my own, and before it hits, Jeff, with his own special sense of humor, dropped in the now-classic line: “Give me some of that sugar, baby.”
That Line
That line, now forever part of the song, fueled by God knows what, coming from who knows where – Jeff tossed it out before the third verse one night during practice at his parents’ house when they were away for the summer and we had free run of the place. None of us knew if it was meant as a joke, irony, or just sheer ridiculousness, but once he said it, the line stuck. Suddenly, “Gimme some of that sugar, baby” was The Cliff’s unofficial stamp. Anytime the song came up after that, someone would drop the line, usually with a laugh.
That same night we had Davey on drums, a friend of a friend who showed up, barely said a word, and gave off this total hippy-dippy vibe. He was quiet, liked his weed, and seemed to float more than walk. At the time, I thought he was great, but listening back now, his playing dragged the whole thing into a slow jam. It was like The Cliff had stumbled into a Grateful Dead set. After that night, just like that, he vanished. Davey only played with us once. I don’t know if we were that bad or if he didn’t like our music, but he completely ghosted us.
Revisiting The Cliff
Revisiting the song all these years later carried more weight than I expected. Jeff and I had gone through a falling out during my divorce, a stupid rift that kept us apart for years. He eventually apologized, admitting he wasn’t in a good place at the time, and I apologized too, realizing that I hadn’t been a good friend either. I was too tied up in my own mess to see him struggling.
So coming back together, sitting in a room with guitars and old notebooks, and creating alongside him again, it’s been more than just fun. It’s been healing.
And this time, I wasn’t approaching the song as the kid who originally played bass while Scott handled the guitar work. It didn’t feel like stepping into shoes I’d been waiting to wear or receiving some kind of blessing; it was simpler than that. I was able to come back to the song and explore it again with the skills and perspective I’d built over the years. That shift gave The Cliff a new dimension: still raw, still urgent, but played with a steadier hand and a clearer voice than I could have offered back then.
Hearing it recorded in high quality was its own kind of shock. Back then, our version lived on a cassette tape full of wow and flutter from a summer jam session in a basement practice space, recorded onto cassette with second-hand gear while Jeff’s parents were away. The sound was messy, chaotic, and barely held together, but it was ours. To hear the song now, dusted off, polished into a proper demo, was surreal. I never thought The Cliff would see the light of day again. Yet here it was, breathing again, bridging the past and the present.
Coming Full Circle
In many ways, it felt like a full circle. Like welding my friendship with Jeff back together, the song became the glue that held us once more. Even with the raw solo I’ve added, the song still needs Scott’s nostalgic “jazzy” lead and Tom’s real drumming to feel 100%. The demo captured the spirit and gave The Cliff a second life, but we all know it isn’t truly whole until those original pieces are back in place.
Still, revisiting The Cliff showed us something important: songs don’t just belong to the past. They wait. And when the time is right, they return to remind us who we were and just how far we’ve come and the roads we’ve traveled.
Listen to the late 90’s version
Rob and Jeff’s 2024 Demo