“Before Paris” features a monologue taken from a 2012 irockjazz interview of trumpeter Roy Hargrove titled “It isn’t a Job”:

The opening track lays out the governing motive which inspired the track that follows: “Lost in Paris”. In it, Tom recounts losing a memory stick full of music in Paris as though it were his lover, which echos the idea of music as an essential part of life as opposed to merely being a job.