The unfettered emotions of this hymn-like song may wreck you. The lyric cautions an unborn baby about the scary world outside the womb. Ultimately, Steven relays a message of hope to the child in the plangent grandeur of the chorus as he sings, “Don’t be afraid to be alive.”

The arc of your life can really be profound if you embrace it. I thought that was a beautiful message for an unborn child. The other important element in this song is the choir arrangement. I’ve never done anything quite like that section. It’s almost pagan in its beauty and optimism. In the end, I think it’s come out is very unique and distinct from any of those other songs.

At one point, I was worried that it was falling back to one of my typical epic piano ballads like “Routine” or “The Raven that Refused to Sing”. But the difference here is that actually this song has a very positive message. “Song of Unborn” is about recognising the world is a wreck, but that every life is unique and can be turned into something really special.

It’s something that has more of an emotional heart to it, something that I hope will touch people. Not that my previous records didn’t have that, but this is definitely on a different plane for me. I consider myself to be a student of the history of pop and rock music, and one of the most mind-blowing things to me when considering the majority of the music that is most special to me, is realising that most of the musicians who created it were in their 20s at the time. There are exceptions, but most of the really great pop and rock musicians, whether it was The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, The Doors, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, The Who…almost all of them made their most important work before they got to 30.

But in my case most of the music I made before I was 30 seems very formative to me, and I feel like I’m getting better and better at doing what I do. I find myself wondering why that should be, and why I can honestly say To the Bone is my best album to date. Maybe because as I get older I’m finding it easier to find the emotional truth at the core of the music.