Stories Behind the Music
Follow the Truth
This song is one that I almost didn't write. I had been playing
around with this tune during the spring of 2000, but I finally
decided that it would be too difficult to make the tune into a
song. Finally, however, right after I wrote "Sole Heir", I
decided to write this one, too. It turned out much better than I
expected. The words are actually for someone I know (I'll spare
them the embarrassment of mentioning the name) who was going
through a tough time back then. The refrain is basically saying,
"Hey, don't worry about how others think of you or what happens
to you. You can't control all of that stuff. All you can
control, though, is whether or not you follow God, so make the
choice to follow the truth."
That's the Idea!
This song came to me, actually, as I was reading "Song at the
Scaffold", which is a story about French Carmelite nuns during
the French Revolution. That's the reason why I named the piece
"That's the Idea" - that's the English translation of the song's
original name, "Ca Ira", which was a French Revolution ballad.
(Although, the words to the original "Ca Ira" went like -
"That's the idea - hang the aristocrats from the lampposts!"
That's why I decided not to put any words to this song.)
Sole Heir to a Fortune
This song came to me during the height of Eminem-mania, during
August of 2000. I thought of the entire first verse and refrain
while on a bike ride, which was bad because I was fifteen miles
from home and I had to keep singing the song over and over again
on the way home so that I wouldn't forget it! The words are a
rage against Eminem and other such musical figures, who become
rich and famous but abuse their influence by singing
horrifically awful songs. This song was my response to many of
my friends who liked Eminem at the time, as the lyrics mean,
"Hey, can't you see how bad Eminem is, and how he's taking your
innocence?" This was, ironically, the only song I've ever won an
award for. In September of 2000 I entered this song in an online
songwriting contest, and it won third place out of twenty-five.
Choices
I wrote this song when I was trying to make an important choice
in my life: whether or not to take a job at a gas station that
would severly limit my free time. I ended up not taking the job,
and this song is what resulted. This song wasn't supposed to
turn out to be funny, though. In fact, the only reason why the
last verse is about food is because the only thing I could rhyme
with "understand" was "canned". This is the oldest song on this
album, written in 1999.
Carefree Day
This song I originally wrote on guitar in May of 2002. The
original song was a dark song about an insane person (the
refrain went, "Welcome to my house of horrors, now.") Luckily,
my sister told me, "Those lyrics are awful! We need to rewrite
them." So one night, Cathy and I sat at the piano bench and
rewrote the entire song. And in case you were wondering, the odd
chord in the interlude is an EbM7. A very difficult chord to
play on guitar.
Leningrad Anthem
In the early part of 2001, all of my songs were written about
love and written on the organ. This is the best one of my
organic (music from organs) songs. The original name was only
"Anthem," but that didn't seem right, so I called it
"Lenin's Anthem," but that too wasn't right. Finally, I settled
upon "Leningrad Anthem." The lyrics are loosely based upon 1
John 2-3.
Gone
This song came to me on a bike ride on the night before I left
for my summer parish assignment in inner city Baltimore.
Originally I wanted this to be a patriotic song about America,
but as soon as I got home from the bike ride, I decided against
it. Instead, I hastily scratched out some lyrics about breakfast
cereals. Then I brought my guitar out to the deck, and my sister
came out and heard my touching song about Captain Crunch. She
decided to help me to make it into a real song, so we did. And
for the record, I wanted to resolve the final chord from an
FM7aug4 to an E, but Cathy insisted that I wouldn't. So I
didn't. And that's how all of these songs came to be.