SONG NOTES

Hey Gemini

After my friend David (and drummer in Aiti Maa) kept telling me to write an upbeat, light-hearted song for once - well, I decided I would try it. Inspired by watching too many episodes of Dawson's Creek with Joey and Pacey falling in love, well - I was inspired to write this lighthearted, romantic song about a first kiss between long-time friends. It's about that magical moment of realization, when the whole world suddenly falls into place.

5th Business

This song is about living in a bubble, in your own world, but looking at the world from the outside, like you are a player in your own life, but only playing a bit part to support the leading cast and help the plot develop – 5th business. It reminds me a bit of the 60’s classic tv series, ‘The Prisoner’. The song is sort of self-directed, like an inner voice of reason, telling the other voice off. Getting pissed off for letting down the rest of the self that wants to experience life. References to books (and the movie), Henry IV (My Own Private Idaho), Robertson Davies (5th Business) and of course, in deference to the B-52’s song and coining of the phrase “own private Idaho.”

AnyDayNow

AnyDayNow also turned out to be a lighthearted song - although it's not completely so. A song about unexpectedly falling in love with someone and the whole process of coming to understand what that love means. I think sometimes we don't always recognize love when it comes unexpectedly, I think sometimes we can expect more than just this simple, happy thing. It's like we're expecting it to be deeper in ways it can't be right at the start, yet we can't trust our own happiness. But someday, we'll be ready for each other -- hence, AnyDayNow.

Mother's Garden

Mother’s Garden is a very personal and powerful song for me. The lyrics all came out at one time, but the music took a couple of years to come to me. This is a song about being caught up in our past and drowning our sorrows and not being able to really see all the wonderful things around us, including love. The imagery of looking through bottles on shelves in front of opaque windows, out into a tumbled and overgrown garden just struck me so deeply; the song just emerged from that image. Of each of us having a garden to grow in. About finding understanding between a mother and child. About a child growing up and coming to the point in life where the roles are reversed, the child caring for the parent.

Gabriel

This song emerged from out of the subconscious. I am still making my way at understanding it. It is another song of longing... of questing and questioning -- wondering at the annihilation of the human spirit through pain and suffering and if this is what cleanses the soul. It has a childlike naïveté of wanting an end to the things that hurt -- or at least to know why. It is about being human and imperfect and yet somehow beautiful because we suffer. Reminds me a bit of ‘City of Angels’ – sort of humanizing the angels. Of course, I hadn’t seen the movie when I wrote the song. Gabriel is the angel that will blow the horn to sound judgement day. Gabriel is the angel that protects and listens to humans. Supposedly. :) The vocals play out the story, with the angel singing the echo, and the human reaching through doubt and questioning and pain to reach inside and sing higher than the angels.

The Siren

I fell in love with Coleman's music. He is a true genius in soundscape songwriting. We decided to work together on this song. The interesting thing about the song is that ALL of the instruments you hear are actually my voice, except for percussion. ALSO, all other percussive sounds, except for the drum beat, are all made out of found objects! Coleman and I both thought it brought to mind water imagery. For me, the imagery that came to mind was a small japanese water garden, the story of the silke, and the feel of big industrial ships at a dockyard. For Coleman, he saw the siren - calling the sailors to their doom.