This one was inspired by the horror movie called The Strangeness that I directed in 1979-1980 but was never used in the film.

Here’s another one I wrote while grappling with issues of identity in my early 30s. Plenty here to decipher, if you know where to look.

This is from the same bargain bin as “Feeling Groovy” by Simon and Garfunkel and reminds me a lot of the feel of the main title theme in the 60s movie, Alfie, though not nearly as clever or polished as either of those. Alas.

I’d been reading a bit about synesthesia where a person hears colors or sees sounds. I began to wonder how that would change one’s view of the meaning of life and of death, and wrote this to explore the possibilities. As Dan Aykroyd says in the original Ghostbusters, “Listen, do you smell something?”

NOTE: The melody of this song made it into the horror film I directed in 1979-1980 called The Strangeness. You’ll find it played by one of the actors on a harmonica in the scene where they first enter the cave from the shoreline.

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 .