This one is based on my own experience working at a photofinishing plant while going to college. I’m not a time-driven person, so punching that clock made me feel like I was in prison. I belonged to someone else until I punched out again.

There were a few old-timers there and I began to think about what it must be like if the whole meaning of your life is that you worked at the same company for 50 years. Sent chills up my spine. So I wrote this.

Production note: I intended to start the song with repetitive machine sounds that would become the underlying rhythm, but I didn’t have the tech or know-how to get it done at that time.

Just last week I found an old electronic keyboard of mine actually has the perfect machine sound as one of its voices, and you can vary the tempo, so I’m thinking of trying to lay it in after the fact and see what happens.

Like as not you may have noticed my music is heavily influenced by the Beatles, above all other artists. Not sorry. Not only does their music speak to me, but my own Muse seems to hail from the same place. Why fight it?

There’s more to that similarity than the title in this song. The melody is reminiscent of some of their work, but the instrumental bridge is certainly a cousin to the bridge in Let it Be, though it is not at all derivative.

I wrote this one in the late 1980s during a time in which I was deeply troubled by a series of decisions regarding my identity and my future. Listen between the lines and you may pick up some clues.

In style, it reminds a bit of Norwegian Wood by the Beatles, though only in a passing way.

I graduated college in 1971 at the height of the civil disobedience protests against the war in Vietnam, against hunger, racism, and sexism. But, being a rather shy kid and more of a thinker than a do-er, I never did get involved. No sit-ins, no arrests, no signs.

What I did do, about fifteen years later, was write this song as an admonition to myself and a warning to others about the personal dangers of choosing to not get involved.

I had a great childhood myself. But I watch TV. And even in my teens I was well aware of the kinds of pressures some kids felt who weren’t so fortunate. So I wrote this song for them.

I was once hired to write and edit a 90 minute documentary on the mass suicide of Jim Jones and the Peoples’ Temple members in Guyana in which more than 900 souls gave up their lives.  Inspired (if you can call it that) by this tragedy, I wrote this song, “Guyana Dreamin'” about a charismatic leader who’s mesmerizing force of psychological power pummels his followers into mental submission and ultimately into taking their own lives.

During the production, I had the honor of meeting with one of the survivors of the mass suicide, and also got the opportunity to direct Oscar and Emmy nominated actor, Robert Stack, who was our on-screen host.

I’ve recently considered reworking the words just a bit and changing the meter and pace to alter this into a song about breaking free of a dependent relationship. Oddly enough, I think that might work .

Back when I was young in the 80s (the 1980s – geesh) I quickly became fed up with the mindless pabulum on MTV that was supposed to pass for entertainment.  Sure, there were a few innovative pieces.

For example, who can forget Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” debut with the first use of computer graphics!  Well, if you are under 30 you still can’t forget it because you weren’t frickin’ born yet – can’t forget what you never see, see?

No matter, this song is a broad accusation of the entire music video machine with just a dash of conspiracy theory thrown in for good measure.

I had always dreamed of recording a complete album of my songs. After completing the eight efforts I just posted here, I compiled them together onto a master tape titled Dichotomy and distributed it on cassette tape to friends. This was somewhere around 1986, as I recall.

For a while, this satisfied my Muse, especially since at the time I was working rather regularly in the film industry as a writer, producer, and directory of educational films, industrials, and small budget commercials – even a music video for a local band.

As time went on, I began to think about the possibility of a second album of songs with lyrics, rather than just the instrumentals of the first album. Now I’m a poor musician and an atrocious singer, but a pretty good composer. So, the prospects of this new album were not stellar from the get-go.

Still, I resolved to do my best so that the songs I was hearing in my head at least might be shared with others, even if the performance was sorely lacking despite good intentions.

The next few posts present the individual songs from this first vocal album, titled Tarnished Karma.