Pursuit of Happyness — the project featuring Chris Gardner on bass and vocals, Joe Chang on guitar, Jess Oliver on drums, and Evan Simmons on vibraphone — is breathing life into a long-forgotten song.

“Judy,” written by fellow Fork and Spoon Records collaborator Jordan Blackmon, dates back to his high school years. The original demo was recorded by Aaron Graves at a sleepover in the seldom-used sitting room near the front door of his parents’ house, with Aaron hauling over a full desktop setup — tower, monitor, wired keyboard and mouse — to track it. The song was revisited a few times and reshaped, but it never quite felt finished. It was never released.

In the lyrics, Blackmon references “taking 20W, Exit 16 bridge,” the I-77 northbound merge onto I-20 West overlooking the wooded edge of Sesquicentennial State Park — a familiar landmark for late-night drives home from downtown shows for Blackmon and many in the Fork & Spoon circle. Those lyrics from the unreleased demo stuck with Gardner, and after all these years, the song found new life.

Reflecting on seeing the song performed in front of Aaron’s painted face, Blackmon said “Seeing Pursuit of Happyness perform ‘Judy’ in front of the ‘I Love My Friends’ mural is a multi-layered surreality… This is the first time ‘Judy’ has ever sounded real to me. Like a complete thought. Sometimes the things you make were meant to be someone else’s.”