Dusty Guitar One of my favorite jokes to say when I play live is that if I forget the words, you won’t have any clue because you’ve probably never heard this song before. I thought it would be great to include it in a song. And especially in the opener of my new album here. Unfortunately, my joke backfired for a while because the last half of this song remained instrumental until I could figure out what else I wanted to say. I think I get the message across pretty well though. You get stuck in a rut and realize that the things you do between waking up and falling asleep really don’t make your life worth as much as you want it to. Gotta get up, break out of the routine, and do what makes you happy – no matter what the cost. As the recording progressed, it sort of turned out like a 1950s rockabilly arrangement. I like that. It’s one of my favorite periods of music and I’ve never really done anything like it before. Rough Draft This one is tricky. Considering it’s probably the most rockin’ track I’ve ever recorded, I wrote it on a classical guitar, oddly enough. You know how you think about an old relationship and convince yourself that neither of you really gave it a fair chance? Well, this is about that. Let’s give it a try again. I know, we’ll probably end up worse off than we were, but what the hell? And I actually wrote a middle eight. I don’t do that often. With Only You I woke up one day in the spring of 2009 with the strange idea that I’d write a song and record it completely in just one day. Let’s see if I can do it! Well, this is what came of that. With a couple very minor exceptions, this was indeed written and recorded completely in one day. I think it took me longer to get the right guitar tone than it did for me to do everything else in this song. Might not be the deepest lyrics I’ve ever written but I bet you’re singing along, right? And it also might be the only bubblegum-type pop song with a Mississippi John Hurt reference. Forgotten Future Sorry about all the happy songs so far, time to get depressed. I actually wrote this as a poem several years ago after a car accident. Maybe it was two different poems? I don’t remember exactly. But I set it to a very simple chord progression with a simple melody and I think it works. I’m basically worrying about whether or not I’ll be able to play music again. The thing is… I’m playing music while I’m worrying about it. So it can’t be all that sad, right? Plus, there’s banjo. I haven’t recorded banjo on a song in about 10 years or so. Beyond Control This is a song I’ve been kicking around for several years now. I’ve never been able to come up with a good arrangement until now. Just simple instrumentation and let the song be itself. It has really bothered me over the years because I really love this song. I’m glad I held out so long because I really like the way this recording turned out. The Strangers Outside This song has been troubling me for a while. I had it completely finished and I totally re-recorded everything just about a month before this album’s release. It isn’t about anyone in particular. I just had these lines in my head for a while and decided to put them into a song. The intermittent 5/4 time signature sort of adds an unsettling quality to the unsettling lyrics. And I went for a “Pleasant Valley Sunday”-like reverbed ending… maybe I went too far. The music completely fades out and all you hear is the reverb signals. Trippy, man. So It Goes One of my rare social commentary songs. We had the Virginia Tech shootings… and then the NIU shootings. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with the world? Those two events aren’t the only things that I was thinking about in this song but they both spurred me to write this. I was seriously in tears when I finished writing this. The ending still gives me goosebumps. Born At The Wrong Time Yet another piece of sarcasm in my oeuvre. I was listening to Paul Simon’s album “Rhythm Of The Saints”. He has this song called “Born At The Right Time”. I thought: sh*t, that’s cocky. So, I wrote this. I was looking around the room and thought about my record collection (which is ridiculously large). “Most all the things that surround me now remind me of yesterday” is about my record collection. And if I go to hell for “swearing to God”… well then I was born at the wrong time to go to hell. Songs For The Moon I didn’t necessarily intend this to be the “title track”, but Songs For The Moon just sounds like an album title, doesn’t it? I wrote this during a rather low point in my career where I thought that the only person, place, or thing listening to my music was the moon. Sad, isn’t it? An uptempo ¾ time signature gives this a rather lilting bit of weightlessness that counters the heavy lyrics. It’s sort of everything I think is wrong all wrapped up in a neat package. It’s really a therapeutic song. Just sing along with it or play along (it’s in D) and you’ll feel good. I know I do whenever I play it. Muse This is one of those songs that I wrote faster than I could think. My hand couldn’t keep up with my brain when I was writing it down on paper. Some writers just have a certain person or a certain place or whatever that inspires them more than anything else. Sometimes it can get frustrating. Sometimes it can cause you to create the best work you’ve ever done. Sometimes it makes you write songs like this. And the answer is no, I don’t have your number written on my wall. That would be weird. Please Let Me Stay I was on the verge of a breakup. So I wrote this in one afternoon to try and “fix” things. It worked… for a couple weeks. It’s another old song (relatively speaking). I had it completely recorded once upon a time. But something happened to the tape I was working with and it was completely erased. Broke my heart. This recording is much better though, so it all worked out. To Hold You This is a song I wrote a long time ago that I recently resurrected. I was told it was a bad song – and maybe it is – but I’ve recently grown fond of it again. When I first recorded it, it was more of a western swing waltz. Now I’ve arranged it with more of a jazz flavor (but that country/western thing is still there). I honestly didn’t intend for the lyrics to sound so mean. But gosh, they are. St. Marion As I was writing this song, I thought “I’ll never tell who I wrote this about”. But I don’t mind saying it now. I wrote it about my favorite actress Paulette Goddard. For those of you saying “Who?”, she was married to Charlie Chaplin and co-starred in his films Modern Times & The Great Dictator. She’s gorgeous, charming, witty, and sassy. What more could you ask for? I could literally go line by line and tell you what each is about. But much like Paulette herself, I’ll leave the details of this song a mystery (including the title!) A Kiss Wouldn’t Hurt I wrote this several years ago. I never took this song too seriously until recently. It’s one of the few on this album that I wrote on piano (Fender Rhodes, to be exact). The arrangement couldn’t be more simple and I love it for that. It makes for a great album closer I think. Take my heart, take my soul… it doesn’t have to be meant in a romantic sort of way.