“The Set Up” is the wayward sister record to The Delines 2025 release, “Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom.” Each song here is a little movie full of grifters either struggling to get out of the life or just falling into it, the aftermath, the wreckage after the breakup, the lost and not the romantics adrift on the road. Willy says “The Delines were finishing the “Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom” sessions when I brought in a tune called “Walking With His Sleeves Down.” Amy learned it on piano and we recorded it live. Her take was stunning but the song didn’t quite fit the record. It was lonelier, more rattled, and it missed that rudderless romance that inhabits the world of “Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom,” so we set it aside. “Keep The Shades Down” was written as a link between the romance of Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom and the isolation of the “The Set Up.” The couple in the song realizes just how close the haves are to being have nots. I had written “Jumping Off In Madras” for the woman in Her