recorded and mixed here at my home studio. 

Imagine you are that lump of wood in the luthiers shop. are you suited to be a cello, a violin, a guitar, a drum? anyway, for my love of wooden instruments, here is a journey. this is theatre, and I have no grand illusions about myself. The amazing Dave Edwards on violin. myself on everything else. if anyone out there plays the cello I would love for the 2 cello parts to be real.



over a decade ago I was given the assignment, "write a poppy kind of song for an animated movie, with the opening lyric “which one am I going to be”"... my first impression was, “uhhhhg! my hands are tied on this on! I wasn’t sure where I would go for any kind of emotional impact, because the line just left me flat. I picked up my guitar and thought. “OK, what could be more stock for a pop tune than a 1-4-5 structur? and I began working on a variations of that with some melodic ideas, but I was still stuck with the opening line. the song “Love Starts in the Kitchen” (posted below) was also written for that animation. sadly, they shelved the project after completing about half of the animation. they would send me footage as it progressed and it didn’t come close to what Pixar was achieving at that point, but I still got 2 songs out of it

!

I started to tap into those early days, those youthful moments when you could see the future wide open before you and ripe with possibilities. the story is about a wood worker, so I also started to imagine that he would build some beautiful instrument, instead of Pinoccio. I have all sorts of instruments around the house... guitars, mandolins, violins, pianos, drums ect. and pretty soon I had verses that provided the emotion that the chorus seemed to lack. 

they shut this project down, and this song laid around for years because it still felt awkward to me. awhile back I decided that I had to get this off the table, and do the work, finish the song! It really needed to have a bridge, so that’s where I went. now the whole thing makes a little more sense to me. everything is leading to that moment in the bridge, 

that moment when you realize that life is pregnant with possibility and potential. 

this song is no reflection on how I see myself, I’m 68 now, and my day came and went. I’m happy, but not delusional! the song is theater, using old memories for a resource and launching pad