LINER NOTES
Here's a few thoughts about each song
you know - the zeitgeist of the moment
- Nobody Special:
- A "WHO'S THAT A-KNOCKING" song. Where I been, What I see, Where
I'm
bound..."When everything is automated, will anything be SPONTANEOUS?"
- Beyond
Tomorrow:
- Started off as
a good-bye, fare-thee-well song, became an invitation to go
that
place where there "ain't no lying to the RACES"...nor do children die there by
stepping on left-over land MINES...come on y'all, it's right HERE in your
HEART.
- With Love
Inspired
- I'm retired...REALLY, I am! I don't play on the street to "make"
money anymore...not that I EVER did it to "make" money...Well, then, Jesse
why do you play...I saw you last week...Because the spirit moved me...Oh, I see, when you
gonna play again? When the SPIRIT moves me...When will that
be? On the SPUR of the moment! See ya there!!
- A Paradise
To Regain
- It
was December 1991...just before Christmas. I saw a picture of a woman with
her kids and a shopping-cart...HOMELESS...the look in the eyes of the children
said what cannot be spoken...within a few days, this entire song had written
itself...does/WILL history repeat itself? Is there a PARADISE to Regain?
- TIME To
Unwind
- This one came in a flash...They grab ya by the pen, and ya
writes'm down..."give yourself time to unwind, leaving the foil on the
wing..."
- Wave After
Wave
- Written during the first week of the Persian Gulf WAR...Both
the verses and the bridge came out singing...one in a M.A.S.H. tent on the IU
campus where I was lending support to student demonstrators during a 24/7 PEACE
VIGIL...and the other sitting on a wall of Bloomington's People's Park (created by
private persons in the early seventies in commemoration of the Original in
Berkeley...then deeded to the city)
- Keep It
Steady
- This song has carried me across many dark murky waters of
unknowing...people join in on the chorus without me asking them to do so.
- Far Too
Long
Now
- Written during my only visit to Minneapolis, during the drought
summer of 88..."We've been blowin' in the WIND, FAR TOO LONG, NOW..."
- From Here
To
Jubilee
- Also written in 1988...it was the day before elections in
November...I
realized
Bush (senior, that is...) was going to take the election...From HERE to Jubilee
was - and IS - a meditation on a "better world a-waitin', and boys, it ain't far
off" (to quote Dylan's Paths of Victory song, from his how-would've-Woody
[Guthrie]-sung-it? period.)
The second half of the second bridge lyric came to me in a dream - I was blocked,
and I decided to "program" a dream, and the following occurred: In the dream, I
was singing the song. When I got to the place where I needed to complete the
bridge, this happened - I sang the part where I'd become blocked, "Take a
good look inside, where LOVE lies deeply hidden. It will enable you to truly
see." Sure as you are reading this, in the dream, the song continued,
"Now, what
is there left to hide/That is still
forbidden?/Let's put it on the table, come the Jubilee". It flowed, as
if it was
always part of the song! I awoke, wrote it down,
and returned to sleep. In the morning, I realized it was the perfect solution to
my writer's block. My humblest thanks to the MOST HIGH.
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