Steve Barkhimer's "Time Was" CD is a good acoustic set. He has an expressive tenor that comes across warmly in the recording studio. His lyrical prowess is more advanced than his melodic originality such as on the word-packed lament to the work-a-day world on "Full-Time Job," "You weep a little & you get out of bed & shuffle on off to the shower; You try to rinse the dust from your head, give your sleepy little ass a scour; You kiss goodbye to your half-baked dreams." One of my two favorite tracks is his talk-sing ballad "Cowboys & Indian Philosophy," "So I took off my pants and set up camp right by my high intensity lamp, perused the shelves to see if ought appealed, sat down on the floor with some day-old pita, cracked open the Bhagavad Gita; there was Arjuno looking at the battlefield." "The Way" is also a great tune with Barkhimer's shotgun lyrical approach in full gear, "You sing of silence but you're playing, Is this a love song or are you praying? Well, all I can say is: I'm not saying." His guitar playing is more advanced than his laboriously plodding piano as evidenced on the dirge-like "Dream." The set ends with the pretty "Prayer," "Your spirit is love." This independent singer songwriter deserves a hearing by those who like acoustic folk pop. Enjoy!
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Ignore the scary cover- this is a great cd with brilliant, thought provoking lyrics and well written music.  You will not be sorry you got it- truly good stuff. It still lives in the CD player as much as in its case.  The music tends to be kind of folksy witty ballads that have enough variety to stay fresh on the ear.
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Interesting and introspective, Barkhimer's lyrics are nothing less than memorable.  "Liddy" and "Full-time job" spoke to me more than any other song has in the past 18 months.  If you're a guitarist, this is one of the best guitarist-songster's albums you'll buy this year.....trust me! I want more from this artist!
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The music is incredibly intelligent and thought-provoking but easy to listen to - some daring rhyme like skipping across a tightwire - Barksdale keeps all of the elements together.  Often reminds me of David Wilcox.
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