The Songs

Tue, 15, May, 2012 00:00:00 CST

A little bit about each of the songs on "Self-Evident Truths"

I began work writing this album a little over two years ago while assisting with another musician's project. Prior to that time I had always had a view of songwriting as a type of trancendental skill reserved for a few human muses with powers far beyond my own. I suppose this belief came from never having really tried excepting some scattered notes from my high school and college days. Needless to say few songs spring up fully grown from some random jottings like those; it takes a great deal of trial and error and rehashing those ideas before you come upon the combination of chords and melody that give you that eureka moment. Interestingly a lot of those old scratchings became parts of the songs on this album...so I guess one could make the argument I actually started writing it about 23 years ago! But as I watched these other musicians and their experiments and back-and-forth that went into finishing a song I realized composing was an accessible art. The next step was to sit down and begin developing ideas, slowly expanding and connecting different segments into whole songs. I hope you enjoy the result.

"Misconnected" (lyrics) I have generally written the music and the lyrics separately and then seen what fits together and “Misconnected” was one of the earliest efforts. The idea for the topic came while I was on an overseas trip during one of those evening discussions where people begin to open up as they get to know each other. One person told the story of how difficult it had been to sustain meaningful relationships as an adult because of a very difficult childhood marked by much distrust and lack of affection. It has always appeared true to me that an inability or unwillingness to communicate openly lies at the root of most conflicts, especially in interpersonal relationships. Whether the block is being honest and open with oneself or adequately expressing oneself to another the result is predictably unpleasant. Our experiences shape how much we can communicate and the ways we do with trust being both a root cause and casualty when we fall short. Our failures begin to trap us in a cycle of over or under compensation as we try to connect with others…in each case we end up misconnecting due to those negative experiences we’ve had. UPDATE: I always intended to have the vocals redone on some of these songs and I've finally got the first one in the can. Steve Mesropian (www.musicmez.com) resang this song and I had Patrick (www.pmrec.com) remix it. Mez brought his great, modern rock pipes and truly knocked this one out of the park!
"Heaven Knows" (lyrics) A friend of mine had contacted me about joining the online community for oilman T. Boone Pickens website for alternative energy, “The Pickens Plan.” He was a small investor and was quite excited about the possibilities of the new technologies that were being investigated with gas then topping three dollars a gallon. He said the organization was also looking for theme songs that could be used online and at live events and I should try to write something for it. I recognized that this was an issue that touched a lot of passion in people on both sides of the energy policy debate and thought that music with a lot of counterpoint would capture both the emotional and rational component of the argument. The verses and choruses alternate with this feel while the overall theme is a strident call to action. The minor key gives the sense of urgency and danger appropriate to a matter of such overarching implications to the environmental and economic health of the nation and the world. Surprisingly, for a complex song of varied moods, time signatures, and tempos, and the one that took the most time to mix, I completed the writing in just over a week. I’m pretty sure that’s a record for any of these tunes.
"Self-Evident Truths" (lyrics) The title track (although I didn’t know it would be when I started) was the first music composition I began putting together. It actually sat for quite awhile in semi-finished form as I worked out a lot of the other tracks. The difficulty lay in the transitions between the very different segments, which I’ve since found is a common problem with my compositions. The various pieces were all there, but smoothly moving from one to the next was a time-consuming challenge, to say the least. The lyrics began with the chorus which came from several phrases I had jotted down at various times. Once I had that I knew the song’s theme was some type of encapsulation of the whole “Great American Experiment” with a democratic republic. This hardly seemed like a subject that could be adequately addressed in a few verses unless I took quite the birds-eye view of the American experience. Since I would need about three verses I began considering what platitudes we had that came in threes and Thomas Jefferson’s statement of the inalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence was the easy winner. It was a fellow musician who recognized that the other songs for the album seemed to revolve around the question posed in the chorus: “…(are) we living out these self-evident truths?” While I had not begun the project intentionally attempting to tie all of the tracks together it did appear that they did each describe some feature of our daily struggles to define ourselves on a personal and cultural level. Thus the album got its name.
"Whose Taboos?" (lyrics) The repetitive, bluesy riff in Taboos made it relatively quick to write and also allowed for a pretty long lyric sheet as the musical phrases could easily be lengthened to accommodate. But in keeping with the idea that prog music is something you can’t comfortably dance to I insisted on putting in a bridge that defied the rest of the song and it toe-tapping groove. The spacey tone is the most obvious change, but the drum rhythm, while still in four-four time gives and angular texture to the whole section as do the irregularly spaced chord changes. While the tempo never actually changes throughout the double-time feel of the solo gives a great sense of motion as it resolves into the original laid back pattern of the intro and verses. The lyrics were a bit tricky as it was very easy to fall into a “pro tradition” or “pro progressive” voice when I was trying to present the subject more dispassionately as a perpetual tug-of-war between those two positions. Ultimately each age in a society has to reach their own balance point about acceptable behavior, and keep reaching it over and over. I just couldn’t resist the rhyme for the title.
"Coming Of Age" (lyrics) I was sitting in the smallest room of my house one day and the first few lines of this song came to me almost completely out of the blue. This goes to prove inspiration can come at the oddest times and that a songwriter should always carry a notepad since I had to yell to my wife to write the words down for me. The association of time of day with age was a natural flow and set up the structure for the rest of the lyrics. The steady stream of the words in the chorus have a rather subtle device whereby the last two words of each line could also be the first two words of the next line. That started on accident but became a conscious effort once I noticed it. If cleverness hits me in the shins I WILL look down and see it! Overall the music is somewhat reflective of the course of a life, too. The opening is quiet and slow, much like our early years, followed by adulthood and its tremendous changes of job, family, and establishing our identities represented in the key change and increased tempo. The original pace of the song returns as it speaks of the final years and our reflections on what we have provided in our children. This tune was a real foreshadowing of my life as a few months after I began writing it my wife was pregnant with our first child. I find that the bridge has taken on a new and powerful significance for me, and I can still get a little choked up singing it.
"A Perfect World" (lyrics) I’ve always had a keen interest in history and the accompanying story of social development. One curious feature that has continued to appear, especially since the Renaissance, is the idea of perfecting society; creating a state of complete justice and equality where, ostensibly, human suffering will be all but eliminated. It seems a worthy, if elusive, goal. But given man’s demonstrated will to power the idea that just enough money, time, and control can lead to another Eden is frightening and has been the rallying cry of many political ideologies, religious cults, and dictators, all of whom were quite willing to use violence to achieve their ends. The minor key is somewhat harsh and the relentless, driving beat evokes images of marching feet; a lock-step uniformity, or perhaps, mass conformity. The final words of the bridge, “Reach for power, force a change, never doubting that’ll we’ll arrange it right,” are perhaps the greatest warning of the song. The uncompromising zeal of a utopian vision always sees its goal as justification of its means, and we have some dreadful examples of that in the past 150 years.
"Indignities We Bear" (lyrics) “Indignities” came from another song I was working on with a similar theme. During a period of writer’s block with that one I was musing on the way we all endured indignities each day, small and large, and how they could be committed knowingly or unknowingly. With that in mind I filled out the chorus, and mulled ideas for how to handle the verses. Since I was speaking about everyday events it seemed each verse should be some type of ordinary vignette to which most people could relate. A rush of creativity took me during a flight from overseas and I hammered out the rest of the song then and there. The bridge lyrics actually drove a lot of the music for that section since they didn’t fit the pattern for the rest of the tune, but I think that break is one of the most memorable and distinctive parts. The bass line was rather self-indulgent and became pretty tricky when coordinating the keys (on pedals) and lyrics all together, but it keeps me on my toes (literally) and is fun to play. The downside is if I lose my place and miss notes it can become a train wreck pretty quickly. This was another song where developing the transitions took almost as long as coming up with everything else!
"Discord" (lyrics) The rancor and invective of the 2008 presidential campaign was the inspiration for “Discord.” As the war of words raged I was dismayed but not surprised to see many people repeating their respective party’s rhetoric and talking points while lacking a clear understanding of the issues and doing little if any checking on the validity of candidate’s statements and positions. American politics has always been a bloodsport, which is fine, but with the information age upon us it takes very little effort to determine fact from fiction, ideology aside. Thinking about this in the larger context and one sees we’re pummeled with messages and slogans everyday from all forms of media to buy products, adopt beliefs, and conform our behaviors. There’s nothing wrong with advertising to get message out, but the unquestioning manner it’s often accepted by people is a concern. “Discord” hits that head-on. The music stems from my interest in jazz and a conscious desire to come up with a jazz-oriented song. Like “Taboos” the longer repeated riffs in the verses allow more room for words and provided a great backdrop to the solo at the end.

Restrung Lefty - The Songs

The Songs