You can print the album liner notes with the lyrics to go with your MP3 downloads. I've never thought an album was complete without being able to read through the liner notes while you listen--it's all part of the experience I think.
The Quick & The Dead... began as an interest that grew into a desire. I met Taylor O'Connor in 1986. George Varani and I were roommates at the University of Maryland, and Taylor lived down the hall. But who cares about all that? Within two months of meeting one another we were recording music together. Taylor was a very talented musician even then, and everyone was very patient while I learned to play, sing, and write. Believe me when I tell you I tested everyone's patience. As time passed we developed a style--we got an identity. Now music flows effortlessly between us and we're finally ready to let others listen. We believe that our music will grow on you.
It Ain't Hard is an old, simple song that I am still very fond of. Special thanks to Karen for contributing to the vocal harmonies. This song is so old that you are listening to the original 4 track version from 1987!
Hope & Nicotine is about a place where my heart feels musical-a place where my mind is visual. Sometimes when I feel great joy there is a sense of foreboding along with it. It's telling me I am alive. Sometimes when I'm up on the steep cliff of a mountain, I can tell how high I am by how long the fall is.
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Coming off Tuesday
Wednesday's got to move me
She says the clouds are cut from mountains, she says the mountains cut from rain.
And she rains on me.
Cooled by the forest dew
Heard a whisper call like snow and I followed you.
Driving `till I'm home sick
Bent on hope and nicotine
She says I know a savior
She says my savior's all around me... all around me.
But I fall apart
When I think about falling apart
And it all comes down
to here and now,
I close my eyes
And I am here now
Coming down from Calvary
Crying for forgiveness
She says my home is waiting for me
She says my faith will take me there-it will take me there.
Push was an attempt at expanding my horizons. It's about my whole life's experience of love. The initial “inspired” guitar work was taken from my 4 track. This song stirs something deep down in me. I'm not going to tell you what.
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Now I don't let in
Who I don't let in
But if you come real close
I'll skip the handshake.
Feel your heart take me
Then the storms came
And the floods came
And all that came did pass his judgment on me
Feel the anger of God
Homing in on me
Feel the push of love
Closing in on me. (x2)
Once, when I was a boy
I was amused when I twirled around.
But now, but not now, I spin around amongst my fear.
I'm Alive was taken from a live radio interview on 97X in Oxford, OH. It was a lost song (in many pieces) that just came together one day. It's all about depression. Mine, specifically-although I didn't realize it until after the song was finished. I set out writing it for my sister Jenni. She was the inspiration that got the song started though, so it's still for her. It's just me, anyway, shouting that “I'm still alive!”
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Coffee, smokes, and rent and all my money's spent
40 hours down and I am up again
Daybreak closing in; darkness falls; life begins
Tripping on the sea that once was drowning me
Days of emptiness touch days of happiness
Far from there I come to here, to laugh
Among the laughter
Cable sharks and gold and preacher save my soul
Can you feel my pain through the remote control?
My will is bound; l twisted `round; I keep it down
Taylor Road is a song about an open road in Indiana. That's probably why it sounds like a country song. I used to bike this road and one of those rides inspired this song.
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Down on Taylor Road
Past where I told you all my heart would ever know
Coyotes roam the land
Close to the loss I feel
My love don't heal no one.
All I want, is your peace to soothe me
It's all I need
If you want to move me
Catch me lost in you
Almost took it for my own
Filled by the moon
Wrapped around my eyes and toes that lifts all life to grow
Held by the soul
Told by the loss I feel
My love don't heal no one
Stretched out like a country mile
Drawn toward the setting sun
Past where I told you all my heart would ever know.
Drinker, written 2/17/93, is all about the pain I saw as a bartender in a small college town. It's also one off those “be honest with yourself” kind of songs. I think that's why it's sad but at the same time, it has some comfort to it. It's about the irrational human psyche as it deals with loss. The idea is that if you make yourself miserable enough you'll find comfort in knowing that you can't get anymore miserable than you already are.
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The bartender looked through the eye in the mirror and then poured me a drink.
“How about them Orioles, going for the pennant this year”?
He smiled as he said it, as if maybe that made him happy.
But I know that's not very happy
If you're the guy routing for Boston.
And I know she left me to save me the pain of knowing she would.
“Drinker 21 another round's coming,
and then you can tell me your trouble.
Drinker 21 you're not the only one, I just dumped two today.”
The bartender moved close to give me a light for the smoke that filled my intentions.
She could have loved me if I hadn't given so much.
But I know she loved me `cause I have all of the pain to prove it.
And I know she left me to save me the pain of knowing she would.
Admit Me was written and recorded over the span of two years-back when it used to take me two years to do something. This is a song of self-admission, an honest song about lies, and the lies we sometimes live. It's an attempt at self-reflection, and a challenge (hope) to do better.
Legacy was inspired after driving along a city beltway and imagining what the landscape looked like 3 thousand years earlier when hunter roamed the land and life was simpler, and much less convenient. The sprawl all around me made me wonder we can ever know God when we put up so many barriers to His creation. It is a tribute to a humanity long dead, whose simple joys of living still inspire me today. It is silly and sad.
Drown was written for those times when everything seems hopeless-when there is nothing to keep you from drowning. To pass through it, I have to give into it.
Servant To King turned out much better (to me) than I thought it would, and it's a blast to play. It's a song about peace through humility; it's a song about satiation through faith; and it's a song about my struggle to balance.
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I need the river to wet my lips
I need the sun to dry my lips
So I can thirst again
Embrace me dear Jesus
My arms are around the world
My heart is at home w/the Son
I need the salt to heal my wounds
I need the Earth to touch my bones; so I can live again.
