Album Notes

This concept album revolves around distraction. The phone rang a lot. I'm on Facebook right now. My kids are yelling at each other. And now they are laughing. Distraction, yes, that's it. The recording opens with "This Song Won't Write Itself". A songwriter can be cursed with songwriting. Let's face it, it takes a lot of time and in order to find a good tune, you must write a bunch of crappy ones. The crappy ones take a lot more time than the good ones. Time away from family. I've seen songwriting ruin some families. "Live it Up" deals with many distractions including middle age. "Welcome to the middle ages, seasons full of serious faces, not too young, not too bold, never doing it in the road. Pardon me son am I in your way, excuse me a bit as I cling on to what belongs to you now". "I'm A Shark" deals with a shark that is trapped in the Shark Reef Aquarium at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Los Vegas. He's distracted by the female shark they brought him there to have sex with. "As Old As I Can Be" is about wanting to be as old as I can be. Memories of youth can be wildly distracting. "Human Being Dog" is the story of a dead human, who was being a dog while living on earth. "Whiskey Heaven" is a song about how a young man's party is an old man's nightmare. "Seems like I've died and gone to hell in my whiskey heaven". "Medication" talks about drugs distracting us from being us. "Intervene" is inspired by that show Intervention. I'm addicted to that show. "Get Well" is a song I wrote while a friend of mine was ill. "I can see in your eye that you're not the kind of guy who would fare well on the other side, so, get well". I wanted to write a song from the point of view of this guy who believes in hell but is not certain about heaven. "The Bugs Are Coming" deals with the distraction of Spring. A sunny day can jump start a muse. I had a blast recording this with Billy Matheny (drums and guitars) Rodney Crihfield (bass) and Joseph Hale (keyboards), collectively we call them the Odd Urges.
My last CD, "My Lost and Found" was produced by Tim O'Brien at John Prine's place in Nashville. Tim & I had pasta and merlot in an Italian restaurant in St. Clairsville Ohio a few months ago and discussed how we both wanted to record together again. Tim said he was busy until summer because he'd be touring with Mark Knophler. Couldn't get him to cancel the Knophler tour (I even offered to by dinner) and was so distracted by these tunes of distraction that I decided to record this one here in WV via Bunj Jam Mobile. There are rough West Virginia edges in this recording. There are some twisted characters angst, beauty and love. I had help co-writing a couple, Whiskey Heaven I wrote with my father, Max and my wife Lisa. The Bugs are Coming was written with my five year old Will and my three year old Sophia sings along with us on that tune. Now, that’s love. I'm proud of this work and hope you enjoy it! See you on the road soon.
Todd Burge
March 2010