One day I was alone in the apartment that I shared with my girlfriend Genevieve in Inwood and I wrote three songs. The first song was “One Line Epitaph.” This song eventually became the most popular song in The Navigators Catalogue (so far). I had already written the music for it, so it wasn’t completely written in one day.
Feeling pleased with myself, I thought I would try my hand at another song that I had music for, but no lyrics. That song became “Run to the Rock.” While it would never be a hit, it is a great folk song.
At this point I was feeling like I couldn’t miss. I started messing around on the guitar, and then I wrote the words and music for “Roll Baby Roll.” While I love the lyrics, I don’t have too much to say about them. I mean, the story and message of the song is quite straight-forward. It’s one of what I think of as collage songs, there is no single story, but a collection of images tied together by a theme.
The song is all vibe. Brian, Naren, and Cuzin D and I might have rehearsed this in the studio before we started recording it, and they being the musicians that they are pretty much nailed it. This was originally recorded for a live show that Bob Brockman was producing called NightSounds. The only problem with the recording was me. I was exhausted and didn’t have the energy that the song needed. Bob suggested I re-record my vocals and guitar. I did, and I added a few other things.
About a year later, I had gone to Andrew McKenna Lee’s apartment thinking I could actually finish this song (and a few others). It had been a tough year. The band had basically fallen apart, but Andrew heard something in the recordings and went to work. He filled in the gaps, and, well, produced the song, so it sounded less like a live take, and more of an album cut.
He presented this (and several other songs to me), and I don’t think I appreciated how good they sounded at the time. I had such a sour taste in my mouth over everything that had happened- or rather not happened- with my music career, that I couldn’t see hope. I was about as far removed from the place I was when I wrote the song as I possibly could be.
At any rate, years later I was listening to all the songs that Andrew had produced, and I realized how awesome they sounded, and what a crime it was that no one had heard them. I hope to put them out, but the others were all tracks that had been released previously, and I wanted this particular album to sound as fresh as possible. Yeah, I know I also released “Get out of Touch” but the version on this album doesn’t sound much like the previously released version.
And that closes out the album, y’all, but hopefully you can tell by now that there are many more songs waiting to come out of the closet.