Album Notes

Ok, I’ll admit it… I‘ve spent my whole life chasing the song.
It’s been the best reason for songwriting… the sheer joy of creating music.

I’ve gone in ever musical direction you can think of except for the one I’ve taken with this album, but it’s been the most gratifying… like finding my voice again.

I decided that I would simplify, go acoustic, and not shy away from doing instrumental versions of my stuff. I made a concerted effort to diminish the use of synthesizers to an absolute minimum.

In early 2007, “Everyone, But Me” was intended to be a vocal, but only the chorus was actually completed and had been for a few years. I hoped doing an instrumental version would help me complete the song, but when it was finished, I liked what I had done far more than I expected.

So I went from there, ignored that typical “vocals only” mantra, and wound up with five out of the eleven tunes as instrumentals.

“Bring Me Through” was written in the 90’s and was originally a vocal, but I felt the melody was too feminine for me to sing, but I really liked the part, so I let my guitar do the singing.

I have always been skeptical of people who claimed they could do this but, “What You’re Going Through”, came to me in its entirety one afternoon in the middle of ’07. The title was the only lyric I could think of at the time.

First recorded around the same time as “Bring Me Through”, “Sparrow, Sparrow” is one vocal tune that has remained virtually unchanged from the early 90’s version.

With my wife Barbara in mind, “Laughing” was written in ‘05/’06. Despite this crazy business of music and in the face of 9/11, she has given me full and lasting happiness.

Ironically, just a few months before 9/11, I wrote “Looking for who I was”, and was almost omitted because it was considered too different in feel from the rest of the album. That changed once I settled on the cover.

During the 90’s I wrote a bunch of vocal mid-tempo rock/pop tunes that have been turned into acoustics’ for this recording. “Lost Inside”, “Like Everyone Else”, and “With You” were all upbeat in previous incarnations. Only “Lost Inside” stayed as a vocal because I’ve always liked the story it tells.

“Together” is one of those songs that have gone through numerous variations… lyrically and stylistically. This one was written specifically to blend with the sound of this CD.

Although “Everybody” is the oldest song, written in 1981 in our first apartment in Huntington, except for some changes to the lyrics, the version on this album is almost identical to what I did back than.

I guess I really have come full circle.