This song is the “heavy hitter” rock song for the album. Of all of the electric songs

(Bass, Drums, Electric Guitar), this song has the most energy and punch. It was originally going to be placed as the last song (The idea was to go out with a bang) however, in the end, I liked the idea of this song followed by Courage.

Listen to “Black Magic“.

The music comes from the energy within that produces such things. I guess when you have the right amplifier, guitar and volume…these types of songs happen. At its core the song is really a blues progression.

As for the arrangement, I was thinking of a horn section, for the beginning and in between the lyrics but Jimmy did a great violin part so we went with violin.

The lyrics come from a time when I was close to someone who was “Wicca”. The things that happen in the song come from the procedures that they follow when casting spells and/or performing rituals. That is…from what I was told.

Listen to “Black Magic”.

Originally this song contained Acoustic Guitar and Violin. Abby and I sang the duet and at the end of the song we both sang “rounds” for a number of measures through to the end of the song.

Then, the first time I worked with Rachel, we played the Fall …just me and her. She started playing along with the same Cello part that you hear in the beginning of the recording. It pretty much changed the direction that I had thought the song was going… and yet, still added to the same emotional content that was already present.

When Jimmy and Abby heard what we had, the task was to change what we had been doing by getting out of the way and trying to enhance the new tone (Cello) of the song…which we did!

One year I just happened to be travelling through New England around the third week of October. I was stunned by the Fall colors that I saw as I travelled through the various States. So much so that I went back, around the same time, for a number of years.

I stopped going, for a couple of years, but still looked for those same views while I travelled through other parts of the country ( Midwest, Blue Ridge Parkway, Tennessee Valley), however nothing really matched the colors I saw in New England..

This song, The Fall, was written the year that I returned back to the original places, that first caught my eye. It was so amazing that I wondered why I had ever stopped coming. I decided that I wanted to touch as many and as much of the places that I had originally visited as possible. I was so overcome with emotion that I sat on a log, while leaves were falling, and wrote the lyrics.

The album contains six acoustic ballads (Acoustic Guitar, Cello, Violin) and five electric songs (Drums, Bass, Electric Guitar). The Night is Long is the base line for the acoustic ballads. It’s fresh, clear, simple and the words should catch your ear whether you’re familiar with them or not (It also has a wonderful Violin solo). It made an easy choice to be placed towards the beginning. To set the table for the remaining ballads!

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, there are a number of great phrases such as…”Double, double toil and trouble”  and …”the milk of human kindness”. For me the one that stuck was; “The night is long that never finds the day”. There are any number of interpretations of this phrase as it relates to the play. However for me, and probably most writers (and artists), it represents all the work that’s done to achieve perfection, that may never be recognized. But that’s ok… I (we) do this for love. I would feel bad if I did not have the ability to recognize greatness in others.

So then I found two other phrases…”We will perform in measure, time and place” and “Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak”…and I thought, I perform in measure, time and place! Then I thought, if I change measure to measured it would have more meaning in regards to the perform. Where sorrow gets words and sadness gets grace.

Listen to “The Night is Long“.

I began discussing the project with Clifford Williams (Bass). When we discussed Drums he said “you know I play Drums also… and I could play both on this recording”. So I asked, “Do you play the Drums as well as the Bass”? He replied…better!

So, he and I laid down the Guitar and Drums for all of the electric songs. He then recorded the Bass over those tracks.

I then laid down the Acoustic Guitar tracks for the acoustic songs.

Everything after that, were tracks that were added in a way that built the foundations of each song. Cello on Acoustic guitar, followed by more Guitar, followed by Violin, followed by Vocals.

After that we added various things, until we thought we couldn’t improve the song anymore. Take a listen to “Home” on my SoundCloud page.

Originally, the verse was a single vocal (me). I would sing a line… “I am feeling something good” and then wait two measures and sing the next line. This was ok, however I wanted to do something (vocally) to improve the song.

While rehearsing, I asked Abby to repeat after me (echo) each line of the verse… and it sounded pretty good. Then, in the studio, she added a second vocal to her part and it sounded even better!

This song definitely became a better song in the studio. Take a listen to “Home” on my SoundCloud page.

In all I had about twenty songs to select. I was fortunate that the writing was clearly superior on  half of them and the arrangements were superior on a couple more. This made it easy to choose.

Also, It was pointed out to me that a number of the songs were very sad. So although these songs were well written and may have meant a great deal to me on more of a visceral level, I could see that they would be in conflict with the majority of the songs that were more uplifting and inspirational.

The music came first, in the order of appearance in the song. The opening chord progression,followed by the picking you hear during the verse, then the bridge build up through to the resolution.

The verse starts the vocal and I had the opening line right from the start. So I had to think about a songbird… or songbirds. This got me through the first two verses, to the last line of the second verse “They sing out their hearts for you”.

At that point, I recalled a great passage from a great book, To kill a Mockingbird. “It’s a sin to kill a Mockingbird” because Mockingbirds do no harm, “They don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us”. This gave me the bridge, the resolution and the third verse. Where I ask the Songbird(s) to join in and sing loud and clear… which is what being a Songbird is all about!