This batch of songs I wrote while living in San Francisco for about a year. It was my first time having to do a long, public transportation based commute to my job. Cramming into an already completely packed BART train, strangers armpits in my face...it was a different experience for a dude who had been walking to his job most of his life.  It served as an inspiration. This conglomerate of souls, trapped in the rat race, head down with no thoughts of escape, provided a map of creation. It was also the first time being away from my lady of many years. She stayed at our apartment in Santa Monica while I was in SF. Living alone again was both welcome and a struggle.  I missed her a lot, and it was nice to have a place of my own to treat however I wanted. It provided a space for my creativity to flow, and not knowing many people up there, also gave me the time to just sit with my art and pick it apart, until a song I knew I liked came to fruition. 

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Below, a song by song breakdown. 

 

PHANTOM: 

Addiction is all it’s forms: money, drugs, power, pain...the list never ends. That is the phantom that, at times, can run our life without knowing it. 

When in the throes, I ponder 

“what if I was your everything?” 

“What if there is no meaning?” 

“what if I could just relax?” 

“what if there is no turning back?”

 

HANGIN’:

A song about connection. To each other. To life. To the planet itself. Basically asking the age old question “Will love be enough to help us survive all that’s coming at us?!” A theme I visited often on those long BART rides.  

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GRIP:

My ode to over 25 years in the restaurant industry.  Not exactly what I set out to do with my life, just what happened for most of it. It wasn’t all awful, as I obviously stuck with it for a minute.  The last verse of the song I sing “we’d better tight our grip,” in a way giving into this is how it has to be. Now, years later and completely out of the restaurant industry, I know for a fact it does NOT have to be that way, or any kind of set way. You can do whatever you want, always.  All there is to do is be responsible for it, and go after it with no hesitation. The universe will align.  Get at it!

 

TIME YET?:

This is how much I missed my lady.  Felt alone and adrift, spending so much time away from her. Then we would see each other and that would take it all away. Then one of us has to leave, and all would rush back.  It was through this process, and a rather intense daily Hot Yoga practice, that I knew I couldn’t live without her anymore. We took a trip back to where I grew up, while I was still living in SF. It was on that trip I proposed, and she said yes!