Taking refuge from life as the lead Escape Goat, Christopher wrote and recorded Elegy for Diamond Lake entirely on his own in the time between Independent Rocker and Critically Ashamed. From the pointless lead track The guy who did nothing to the morbid final ballad Diamond Lake is Dying this introverted and self-obsessed songwriter makes his way through material already thoroughly digested by really good artists like Woody Guthrie, Beck and Tom Waits.
Perpetually posturing, but debilitatingly self-conscious, he strums his old guitar, strains to sing on key, and howls in frustration on his harmonica in his attempt to give gut-wrenching twists to worn-out themes like old time religion, tragic love, and death. Ideas are their opposites in the hands of this smartass songcrafter. The sublime and lovely ends up deconstructed into the mundane, and the massive manure of everyday life is sculpted into words of art.