the poem, The Music Box, has been set to music but never recorded. it's on my list of projects to complete before ... you know, before then. the poem was written for Emily Tracy, a classical soprano i met and fell in love with just prior to leaving LA that year. i didn't have enough experience with sopranos at the time to know any better.
2) c'est la vie [ chuck berry ] - this is one of Chuck Berry's less well-known but certainly best songs. i put it on a demo of songs i planned to sing at a friend's wedding in 1987. it's not perfect but the spirit of the track tickled my fancy, so i'm throwing it in here ...just because.
3) chain of love - 1981,'82 were difficult years in my courtship of Carla Richardson. once again a flood of words and music poured out to help me deal with it. some songs were addressed to my lady love personally. some, like this one, were of a more general, 'philosophical' tenor. :)
4) daddy - this recording, circa 1982, is incomplete and of poor quality, from a live performance at the Folkway in P'boro, NH.
it is, however, the only existing recording i've discovered so far, and i've preserved it here. [ the lyric is complete on the lyric page ]
the song was written probably 2 years earlier, in Chicago. it is an appeal, unvoiced except in this song, both to my own father, and to my 'heavenly' father, or both together. it's about despair, a psychological place i didn't dwell in too often.
5) i believe - more of the same. Carla, Carla. 24/7. i did have faith that things would eventually sort themselves out. this says it all - except, of course what i needed to say in the other 12 songs.
6) miracle of the rainbow - in 1980 i was living at Trixie Sagendorph's beautiful home overlooking Mt. Monadnock across a big open meadow behind the house. one night, as i watched at sunset, the meadow was filled with the lights of a thousand dancing fireflies.
the rainbow is imported from the California coast. the song is for Carla, of course. she never liked it. she thought i meant she was just an ordinary girl i happened to pick at random. that not what it says, but maybe she didn't know she was special.
find an additional note here
7) my love reflected in you - there must must be a recorded version of this with accompaniment. i hope so.
meanwhile, here's an a capella rendition. it's happy little #. and.... of course, was written for you-kno-who.
8) obadiah - for a note on the song, click here
9) pumpkin - Fall, 1979, New Hampshire. creation shines in the clear sun of early morning and i'm thinking that someone
i love could be round and ripe as the pumpkin in my song by this time next year. and who might that 'someone' be? why it's Carla. sadly, it never happened. but then, there is this song.
10) spiderweb - oh, Carla. i wrote songs, i made poems for you. i even sewed clothing. and last, i crocheted a boat. read that again. crocheted a boat. it was made from yarn and sticks. it looked remarkably like a real sailing ship, though perhaps more 'colorful'. it didn't float or sail in the water, of course. it was an 'idea' of a boat. maybe that was my problem. too many ideas. where was the bacon?