"Eleventh Confession" — How a dirty crawl space, a joint, and a half-remembered song fragment started my music career

“Eleventh Confession” became the first track off my solo debut, This Father’s Day, which was released on Island records in 1986.

Video still: Jim Hershleder

In the winter of 1985, a few months after my dad died, my band Sussman Lawrence and I began making plans to move from our hometown of Saint Lous Park, Minnesota to New York City in a wild-eyed gambit to further our rock and roll career.

I had a little Tascam four-track cassette recorder set up in the basement of my parent’s hou…