Based now in Nashville (a sane and civil, all-inclusive music community – meaning not just perceived Country) after many years in Los Angeles, I spent much of ’05 crafting Goodbye Summer. These songs are part of a group written over the past 4 or 5 years, with the exception of ‘You Told Me You Love Me’ written in the mid-80’s while living in Laurel Canyon high up in the Hollywood hills. “I just couldn’t part with that sad and tragic love scene”.
Title song ‘Goodbye Summer’, written a couple of years ago and containing scenes from my New Orleans’ youth, has taken on a new meaning in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The words “Let the warm water fall on us again”, meant to express my love for that truly unique American city, seem chilling now. ‘Here We Go Again’ is a war journal asking the question, ‘When will it ever end?’ I delve into the ‘forbidden’ areas of war and religion but end on a note of hope. ‘Ain’t That Love’ is how I’d imagine a song might result from pairing Andy Partridge’s music with Walter Becker’s lyrics. “Reel You In” is a piece of Jazzy silliness – an excuse to swing a bit. ‘This Healing Heart’ came from a deep, dark, yet ultimately hopeful place. Moving through, and recovering from loss, is another universal emotion that we all inevitably experience. Old friend George Winston added his compelling piano. ‘Smellin’ Like a Rose’ is a regular guy/girl story set to a Cajun rhythm. The soulful Mr. Steve Conn revs up the squeezebox here. ‘You’d Think I’d Know By Now’ is about the consequences to a relationship of living “in your own world”. ‘The Shame of The South’ is indeed an experience I had around age 9 and the story speaks for itself. Good friend Sam Broussard takes an inspired guitar solo. ‘There I Said It’ - Hey, I live in Nashville – Gotta write a “come-back-baby, sorry-I-was-such-a-shithead” Country song!
‘December 1980’ describes that event for me – “Innocence lay shattered”. I had to have my friend and brilliant New Orleans guitarist, Phil deGruy, play on the album and suggested Lennon’s classic ‘Imagine’. Phil came up with this beautiful and stirring take on his 17-string guitarp. Thanks, Phil - Yabba Dabba. ‘Try (a Happy World)’ is my plea for World Sanity. After we cut it, I realized it sounded like a Traveling Wilburys song! I did love their first record, just before Roy Orbison died. ‘If I Believed in God’, the coda, was written after all else was finished, but had to be included. It is, of course, rhetorical, but expresses where I stand at present in this area.
I Know, I Know…. Politics and Religion: the two subjects never to be discussed in polite circles. So screw polite circles. This is my story and I’m stickin’ to it!
