When asked about the title Ed says, “We hope. We dwell on that Hope and we start to Dream. As time moves along, we see where we’ve been and where we are now, and we Sigh.”
For a number of years one of Ed’s rules of song writing has been to create music to cause people to contemplate the subject at hand. He didn't want to tell people what to think but to cause them think about things. Ed broke this rule with the song “I Declare” as he explains, “Over the last several years I’ve seen so much darkness, that I felt I had to make a declaration that ‘Love is not a dream’.” The song starts out, ‘It seems a little insane to me, to say such a thing out loud.’ But there are times that declarations are to be made and Ed hopes those that don’t like it will cut him some slack on this one.
There are seventeen songs on this CD, more songs, same great price. The lyrics are wrapped around a few pictures on the six sided CD cover providing a different look n’ vibe. Ed says he has as much fun designing the covers of his CDs as writing the songs. A picture of Ed’s wife Panda graces the cover of this CD. She was sitting in an out door café in New Orleans and had this “Hope Dream Sigh” look on her face. It’s a non-posed photo.
This CD contain some new twists, after all with seventeen songs there’s plenty of room to twist it up. One song is an ironic Calypso beat and wacky, humorous slant on relational woes while another is an irresistibly driving, rocker. Switching gears again is the song “Sad Stories” a klezmerized tongue-in-cheek commentary on fantasy living for the not-so-rich and delusional. “When Words Fail” is a minor, blues-drenched look at love that goes the distance when communication breaks down with plenty of room for the Bob Hartig to stretch out on Soprano sax, one of the two songs he plays soprano on where the rest are his usual emotional Alto sax.
Ed adds more slide guitar on this recording then in previous efforts. An example is the song “How Do I Love” where he supplies a haunting slide which echoes David Lindley’s work when he was with Jackson Brown. Alan Dunst creating a solid spinning percussion mix while Don Cheeseman lays down some great bass lines. Ed also plays bass on several tracks do to Don’s new son’s heath issues. Ed’s vocals just keep getting better and the whole project has been declared by many to the best yet, and this is when they thought the others were already soooo good. Welcome to “Hope Dream Sigh”
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