THOUGHTS ON THE SONGS

THOUGHTS ON THE SONGS OF
"Sculpting The Shaman With Occam's Razor"

A PLACE FOR YOU
A straight-ahead rocker with some fuzzed-out guitar lines, a couple of verses of this one go back to some of my earliest lyrics. I wrote the additional verses and chorus and music for this project. While I won’t admit to anything of an autobiographical nature, I will let the listener determine the meaning in these images! :o)

THROUGH THESE EYES
This is a new song written for this project. Every other CD needs a little Mambo, doesn’t it? Latin American rhythms are fun and make for a nice change of pace sometimes! It’s a bit of a study of how difficult it can sometimes be to vocalize the feelings that we have for someone we care about. I had a lot of fun programming the horns and drums on this one!

‘TIL THE BLUES COMES TO LIVE WITH YOU
Along with Bluegrass and Rock and Roll, the Blues is one of my favorite music forms to listen to and perform. This is a “preachy” new tune written for this CD. The lyrics are self-explanatory.

FOR YELHSA
A somewhat-difficult-to-pull-off instrumental track that swings, back and forth, between a “Spanish Bolero” progression and a “Tin Pan Ally” modulation, this was one of the more challenging exercises in drum programming as well. The title is a nod and a wink to a big fan! ;o)

ONE MORE DAY
This is one I wrote while recording “A Drought At the Fountain Of Reason” for the love of my life, my wonderful wife, Nell. One of the hardest things in songwriting, for me at least, is getting what is inside your heart and mind out in such a form that you can “hang” a tune to the thoughts. One morning I woke up and this one just kind of “popped out” complete. It’s a telling Love song in every sense!

DON’T LOOK BACK
A study of lost youth, and steeped in quasi-psychedelic imagery, some of the lyrics to this tune hark back to my teens! It took a few decades of living for an actual song to coalesce from those images. The opening section is a “soundscape” or aural tone poem and was one of the most enjoyable parts of the entire CD to work on. Figuring out how to segue from this section to the “Bo Diddley” rhythm of the main song section was the single most difficult part of the project!

STRAIGHT TO THE HEART
I wrote this (words and music in one sitting) as I pondered the upcoming Steve Kimock and friends show At Chester’s Place in Fayetteville AR on March 13, 2004. This was Steve’s Last show at this venue – a favorite for many years for both Mr. Kimock and many of my friends. The arrangement is something I’ve wanted to do for years!!

HALO AND HORNS
A totally new tune inspired by this quote: "You're a healer, too. The way you write, the gift that you have to put words together to have impact on people…that's being a shaman. Anyone who complements life is a shaman. It's not just Bob Marley or some guy in the jungle or an Apache. John Coltrane, Stravinsky, Einstein. All of us have shamanic things in us. My wife said, "People are gonna think you're tripping, calling yourself a shaman." I'll say it like this: Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Allah, Rama, Jehovah-they're all pointing at the same thing: the light inside your heart. Yet most people, instead of looking at the light, they go and smell his finger, instead of what he's pointing at. So that's what a shaman is to me-someone who can spread the spiritual virus. It's very contagious. We want to invite people to transmute fear and anger the way Jesus transmuted wine from water. We invite people to create a masterpiece of joy out of your life; out of all the emotions, all the up and downs; your horns and your halo." – Carlos Santana
This same quote (and train of thought) inspired the title of the CD…

MY DANGER QUEEN
The first verse (or verses) is another fragment lifted from a notebook written about 1968 and fleshed out this spring to this form. A clear nod to teenage angst! It’s another fairly straightforward rocker that is FUN to play!

MYSTERY GARDEN
This is another song inspired by a Quote: "The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer-- they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer."
-- Ken Kesey
I bought a new “modeling” effects pedal in the middle of the sessions for this CD. The opening “jam” section of this song was (mostly) recorded the first day or two after I figured out how to operate it. Yeah, I know 5 tracks of electric guitar is a bit much, but it’s Rock and Roll – the very definition of “wretched excess”!!! :o) Hopefully, I succeeded in playing, recording and mixing in such a way that they are complimentary rather than just excessive!!

WHEN TOMORROW COMES
This is another song that has its roots in fragments found in some old notebooks that weren’t even written in the same decade!!! Something in this song evokes a “Honky-Tonk Gentleman Country Singer” feeling in me! It's one of my personal favorite songs that I’ve written! The lead vocal track was a “scratch vocal” done with an old Shure SM57 mic that I’ve had for about 25 years. After listening to it, I felt I had captured the “emotion” to the song in the first pass, so I didn’t replace it. I finally wrote a song that I could play my Dobro on, as well!!