SONG COMMENTARY
DRIFTING
Drifting was written in 1991, while I was working on the album “Fire & Light”. I was working at what was then called Whitefield Studios in Costa Mesa CA. I came in one day and started fiddling with the piano. I wrote a couple of verses and a bridge and it was coming out well. I had the engineer roll tape, and I put the song down in its then form. It turned out so well that I was going to put it on the album. But I felt that it didn’t really fit the format, and it really was an unfinished song.
I played around a little bit with it at home, and wrote the rest of the song. it didn’t go on the album, so it kind of sat on the shelf for a while. When I decided to make “Moonrise Serenade”, this is one of the first songs I wanted to record. The track the guys cut was quite different from my original demo, but in many ways much improved.
This song is essentially a fantasy. A friend of mine, Glade Hoffman, listened to the song recently. He said he felt like he was floating in heaven. Hope others have the same reaction.
RAIN
I don’t recall the inspiration or the writing of this song.
I know the idea of the song in general is to submerge ourselves in His love and grace.
I performed the song for a videotaping we did in Brisbane Australia about 25 years ago.
We had a lot of people on stage, and the singers were primarily Fijian. When it got to the “Hosanna” part I thought it would be cool to sing it in Fijian.
They translated it and sang it.
Many years later, when we recorded the song for this album, we didn’t know anybody that could tell us what they were actually singing., So we made up syllables that sounded like what was on the tape from the previous performance. So it actually doesn’t mean anything at all as sung, but captures the sound of what the Fijian singers sang.
It turned out kind of “tribal “and I really like the vibe.
MOONDANCE
This is a more current song. When I started the album, I wanted to do some new material as well as some of the older songs.
I had some song ideas on my computer and found this little fragment which was based on a patch from my Korg Triton called “Moondance”. I decided to work with that idea as a song.
I feel this song which is basically about rejoicing instead of despairing in hard times, would really minister. I don’t write a lot of up-tempo stuff, and we needed some songs of this type. I love how it turned out and hope it will bless a lot of people.
BLESSED BE THE NAME OF MY ROCK 2024
This song was written backstage at a concert at Buena high school in Ventura, CA probably early 80's. In those days I would often warm up by finding a private space, opening my Bible, and just singing scripture. That night I opened the Bible and randomly picked Psalm 144. I wrote the lyrics in about 20 to 30 minutes, and actually performed the song that night at the concert for the first time.
I have rarely re-recorded any of my previously recorded songs. The expense and time involved when you have new songs to record, seems generally counterproductive.
This song first appeared on my album “Name Above All Names“ recorded in 1983.
At that same video taping in Brisbane, Australia mentioned on the song “Rain”, the song was given to a bunch of young musicians from Australia to learn for the taping. When it came time to rehearse the song, one of the guys said that he had a fresh idea for the song. They played me their idea, and it blew me away. It seemed to give more force and urgency to the song.
When it came time to record it, we used the recording from the video as a guide track.
The end product turned out great.
This song has fresh meaning for today. People don’t talk about spiritual warfare much anymore. I feel this will be a reminder of the idea of standing against the powers of darkness, in the name of Jesus.
“We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in high places.”
WHO COULD LOVE ME
This song is a combination of a piano chord idea I had which I recorded into my iPhone at soundcheck at some church.
I later played around with it on my piano, and began to write the words.
I needed a second movement to the song, and I remembered another song fragment I had written years ago, with the idea of “who could love me more than you” etc.
I added that section to the song, and it seemed to work perfectly.
When we took it into the studio, we had the guitars replace the piano idea, which worked better than playing it on the piano.
This song is one of my favorites on the album.
GRANDMA.
One day, a four line phrase came to my mind. I wrote it down and forgot about it. I told a friend, “these are the saddest four lines I’ve ever written“. I didn’t know how to proceed with the lyric.
I pictured a grandma sitting in a rocking chair with flowers all around her, touching her wedding ring. I thought “well, this should be a song about grandmas". I then thought of my wife’s grandmother, the matriarch of our family. We called her Grandma Sallie. She was “old-school“ Assembly of God: no make up, button your clothing up to your neck, and wear your hair in a bun in the back. Although this was her conviction, she never judged my daughters for their choice in clothing, or the fact that they were wearing make up at times. She just walked steadily with God, her face set like a flint, as it says in the Bible.
The song basically represents her life and character, but it also applies to many mothers and grandmothers everywhere. I see the song as a tribute to these wonderful women of God, who have been such great role models for our daughters and granddaughters.
WAS THAT JESUS
This song was inspired from an experience I personally had just before I went to Calvary Chapel and turn my life over to Jesus. I lived in Orange County at the time. These were the days where nobody talked much about religion publicly. All of a sudden I began to see signs of Jesus everywhere. I went to a clothing store to get a pair of jeans, and someone had written on the wall in the changing room “Jesus loves you“. I had several other encounters like this in different situations. I never actually saw Jesus like in the song, but I beefed it up a little bit to make the narrative more interesting. It’s mostly fiction, but based on those experiences.
This is an older song that has been sitting around for years. Every time I heard the demo I thought “I need to record that “.
I finally did, and I’m so excited that it’s appearing on this album.
DON’T BE LONELY
Another song that has been around for years. Again, inspired by a patch on my Korg Triton.
No deep story here, the lyric is self evident.
CURTAIN.
This is a song about addictions. I’ve had my own struggles with addictions over the years. I pretty much know the drill. I wanted to depict in this song how we get pulled in, and ultimately the only way that we can get out.
DUNGEON
This song reflects a personal experience I had. In simplest of terms, I was in one of the darkest places I’ve ever been. But I saw the Lord redeem the situation, however hopeless it seemed to me at the time. The song is a dramatization and a metaphor for what many of us as Christians go through from time to time.
Some people who have heard it think it’s about death. But to me, it’s really about life, coming out of a desperate situation into a place where I can live in the light of His face. The last line “even death will become His minister when He finally calls me home”, turns even death into a positive thing. Ushering us into the arms of Jesus.
SOLOMON
This is another song I had started years earlier. I had a couple of verses and a bridge that I’d recorded into ProTools.
When it came time to record the album, I remembered the song and finished it.
Much of the lyric is lifted directly out of the “Song of Solomon“. Other parts I made up.
I spent a lot of time on the lyrics. I wanted to convey the eroticism and sensuality of the Bible book, but didn’t want to cross the line.
It is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written.
LITTLE GIRL LOST
Another song I had started many years ago but never finished. All I had was the “little girl lost” part.
It was not planned to go on the album. I was up at a friends house in Northern California, and he has a little recording set up. I wrote the verses there, and finished the demo.
It turned out so well, I thought I would include it on this album. Usually I use the best players I can find, but this time I played piano on it myself.
I’ve heard clarinets featured on several of the recordings I like. I put clarinet on a few of the songs on the album, and thought it would really add to the mood of this song.
BABY YOU DON’T HAVE TO CRY
This is the oldest song on the album. Actually written before I was a Christian. I was living in Hawaii, and often took my guitar out to the beach. I wrote the whole thing there, but I wasn’t recording at the time, so the song got shelved. I did wind up making a demo of it about 35 years ago, and I loved it.
It had some new age lyrics, so I had to change some of them. When it came time to record it for this album, the studio band thought it might sound good with sort of a “Keane” sound. The original track featured the piano. I didn’t really care for the sound of the track, as I always saw this as a guitar song. I took the song over to Jonathan Crone, a local musician. He added some very cool guitar parts, and now I’m loving the track. You can still hear the“Keane“ piano in there in spots. Turned out to be one of the best songs in the album in my opinion.
DON’T BE AFRAID
This song goes back to the days of the recording of my album “Voice of the Wind”. I was experimenting with different ways to record that live worship album. I tried first to make the studio into a praise atmosphere. We actually brought about 30 people into the studio. But the configuration of the studio, built in a garage, did not allow the kind of connection I needed with the audience, and I only got a few usable songs. I then thought it would be cool to just be in the studio alone, and record by myself, alone with God. That also did not work too well, but I did get the most amazing song called “The Tear”. Recorded in one shot, it appears on the album “Evening, Shadows“. The last thing I tried was to bring remote recording equipment into different venues and record in a live atmosphere.. This worked the best, and I got the bulk of that album from those sessions.
But this isn’t the story of that album.
In those first sessions in the garage, the only other musician recording with me was my friend, Burleigh Drummond, the drummer from the group Ambrosia. I recorded the song the first time there. It was much slower than what appears on the new album. The verses to me have a Leonard Cohen vibe. The chorus is inspired by my favorite DooWop group, “The Flamingos“.
Lyrically, it’s pretty straightforward.
SHOW ME YOUR WAYS
Based on the Bible passage from Psalm 25:4-12, this was one of the more recent songs written for the album. Most of my songs are written with the music and the lyrics coming at the same time. But this time I had some great lines I wanted to use from that Psalm. So I shaped the music more to the lyrics then vice versa. Not a lot to say about it, just that it’s a modern musical interpretation of that psalm .
SPEAK HIS NAME
A very special song to me. I was ministering to a group of teenagers at North Hollywood Assembly in CA many years ago. At the end of the service, I had the kids come up to individually pray for them. Many of the reasons they brought to me for prayer were shocking, considering the area which would be considered to be upper middle class. They were experiencing as many painful things as kids in any other area. As I drove home after prayer, I had a burden on my heart for these kids. It followed me home.
I went to the piano and wrote the song pretty much in one sitting. I made a demo of it later, but again it was shelved for many years.
For some reason, I wasn’t thinking of this song for this album. But one day, I felt the Lord prompt me specifically to record it. This doesn’t happen very often. When we came to record it for this album, the musicians listened to my demo, and felt a more delicate approach might be a good idea. The piano player, Jason Webb, came up with that amazing riff at the front and the end, and changed the whole mood of the song.
I thought it would be a fitting close to the album.
BY THE WAY (bonus track)
This song was written way back probably around 1980. I don’t want to get into the detailed story here, but I struggled with alcohol addiction as a Christian. When I got delivered, I realized what pain I had put my wife through during those years. I wrote this song for her, as a song of repentance and love. I made a demo, but I didn’t play it for her for over 30 years. There were a few lines in the song where I thought, “I don’t know if I can live up to that“. When I finally decided to record the song around 2010, I finally played her the demo. We had a “Kodak moment“, and went ahead with the recording. It’s a song that can speak to both sides of addiction. There is the addict and the spouse of the addict. This song can speak to both from different perspectives.
Drifting was written in 1991, while I was working on the album “Fire & Light”. I was working at what was then called Whitefield Studios in Costa Mesa CA. I came in one day and started fiddling with the piano. I wrote a couple of verses and a bridge and it was coming out well. I had the engineer roll tape, and I put the song down in its then form. It turned out so well that I was going to put it on the album. But I felt that it didn’t really fit the format, and it really was an unfinished song.
I played around a little bit with it at home, and wrote the rest of the song. it didn’t go on the album, so it kind of sat on the shelf for a while. When I decided to make “Moonrise Serenade”, this is one of the first songs I wanted to record. The track the guys cut was quite different from my original demo, but in many ways much improved.
This song is essentially a fantasy. A friend of mine, Glade Hoffman, listened to the song recently. He said he felt like he was floating in heaven. Hope others have the same reaction.
RAIN
I don’t recall the inspiration or the writing of this song.
I know the idea of the song in general is to submerge ourselves in His love and grace.
I performed the song for a videotaping we did in Brisbane Australia about 25 years ago.
We had a lot of people on stage, and the singers were primarily Fijian. When it got to the “Hosanna” part I thought it would be cool to sing it in Fijian.
They translated it and sang it.
Many years later, when we recorded the song for this album, we didn’t know anybody that could tell us what they were actually singing., So we made up syllables that sounded like what was on the tape from the previous performance. So it actually doesn’t mean anything at all as sung, but captures the sound of what the Fijian singers sang.
It turned out kind of “tribal “and I really like the vibe.
MOONDANCE
This is a more current song. When I started the album, I wanted to do some new material as well as some of the older songs.
I had some song ideas on my computer and found this little fragment which was based on a patch from my Korg Triton called “Moondance”. I decided to work with that idea as a song.
I feel this song which is basically about rejoicing instead of despairing in hard times, would really minister. I don’t write a lot of up-tempo stuff, and we needed some songs of this type. I love how it turned out and hope it will bless a lot of people.
BLESSED BE THE NAME OF MY ROCK 2024
This song was written backstage at a concert at Buena high school in Ventura, CA probably early 80's. In those days I would often warm up by finding a private space, opening my Bible, and just singing scripture. That night I opened the Bible and randomly picked Psalm 144. I wrote the lyrics in about 20 to 30 minutes, and actually performed the song that night at the concert for the first time.
I have rarely re-recorded any of my previously recorded songs. The expense and time involved when you have new songs to record, seems generally counterproductive.
This song first appeared on my album “Name Above All Names“ recorded in 1983.
At that same video taping in Brisbane, Australia mentioned on the song “Rain”, the song was given to a bunch of young musicians from Australia to learn for the taping. When it came time to rehearse the song, one of the guys said that he had a fresh idea for the song. They played me their idea, and it blew me away. It seemed to give more force and urgency to the song.
When it came time to record it, we used the recording from the video as a guide track.
The end product turned out great.
This song has fresh meaning for today. People don’t talk about spiritual warfare much anymore. I feel this will be a reminder of the idea of standing against the powers of darkness, in the name of Jesus.
“We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in high places.”
WHO COULD LOVE ME
This song is a combination of a piano chord idea I had which I recorded into my iPhone at soundcheck at some church.
I later played around with it on my piano, and began to write the words.
I needed a second movement to the song, and I remembered another song fragment I had written years ago, with the idea of “who could love me more than you” etc.
I added that section to the song, and it seemed to work perfectly.
When we took it into the studio, we had the guitars replace the piano idea, which worked better than playing it on the piano.
This song is one of my favorites on the album.
GRANDMA.
One day, a four line phrase came to my mind. I wrote it down and forgot about it. I told a friend, “these are the saddest four lines I’ve ever written“. I didn’t know how to proceed with the lyric.
I pictured a grandma sitting in a rocking chair with flowers all around her, touching her wedding ring. I thought “well, this should be a song about grandmas". I then thought of my wife’s grandmother, the matriarch of our family. We called her Grandma Sallie. She was “old-school“ Assembly of God: no make up, button your clothing up to your neck, and wear your hair in a bun in the back. Although this was her conviction, she never judged my daughters for their choice in clothing, or the fact that they were wearing make up at times. She just walked steadily with God, her face set like a flint, as it says in the Bible.
The song basically represents her life and character, but it also applies to many mothers and grandmothers everywhere. I see the song as a tribute to these wonderful women of God, who have been such great role models for our daughters and granddaughters.
WAS THAT JESUS
This song was inspired from an experience I personally had just before I went to Calvary Chapel and turn my life over to Jesus. I lived in Orange County at the time. These were the days where nobody talked much about religion publicly. All of a sudden I began to see signs of Jesus everywhere. I went to a clothing store to get a pair of jeans, and someone had written on the wall in the changing room “Jesus loves you“. I had several other encounters like this in different situations. I never actually saw Jesus like in the song, but I beefed it up a little bit to make the narrative more interesting. It’s mostly fiction, but based on those experiences.
This is an older song that has been sitting around for years. Every time I heard the demo I thought “I need to record that “.
I finally did, and I’m so excited that it’s appearing on this album.
DON’T BE LONELY
Another song that has been around for years. Again, inspired by a patch on my Korg Triton.
No deep story here, the lyric is self evident.
CURTAIN.
This is a song about addictions. I’ve had my own struggles with addictions over the years. I pretty much know the drill. I wanted to depict in this song how we get pulled in, and ultimately the only way that we can get out.
DUNGEON
This song reflects a personal experience I had. In simplest of terms, I was in one of the darkest places I’ve ever been. But I saw the Lord redeem the situation, however hopeless it seemed to me at the time. The song is a dramatization and a metaphor for what many of us as Christians go through from time to time.
Some people who have heard it think it’s about death. But to me, it’s really about life, coming out of a desperate situation into a place where I can live in the light of His face. The last line “even death will become His minister when He finally calls me home”, turns even death into a positive thing. Ushering us into the arms of Jesus.
SOLOMON
This is another song I had started years earlier. I had a couple of verses and a bridge that I’d recorded into ProTools.
When it came time to record the album, I remembered the song and finished it.
Much of the lyric is lifted directly out of the “Song of Solomon“. Other parts I made up.
I spent a lot of time on the lyrics. I wanted to convey the eroticism and sensuality of the Bible book, but didn’t want to cross the line.
It is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written.
LITTLE GIRL LOST
Another song I had started many years ago but never finished. All I had was the “little girl lost” part.
It was not planned to go on the album. I was up at a friends house in Northern California, and he has a little recording set up. I wrote the verses there, and finished the demo.
It turned out so well, I thought I would include it on this album. Usually I use the best players I can find, but this time I played piano on it myself.
I’ve heard clarinets featured on several of the recordings I like. I put clarinet on a few of the songs on the album, and thought it would really add to the mood of this song.
BABY YOU DON’T HAVE TO CRY
This is the oldest song on the album. Actually written before I was a Christian. I was living in Hawaii, and often took my guitar out to the beach. I wrote the whole thing there, but I wasn’t recording at the time, so the song got shelved. I did wind up making a demo of it about 35 years ago, and I loved it.
It had some new age lyrics, so I had to change some of them. When it came time to record it for this album, the studio band thought it might sound good with sort of a “Keane” sound. The original track featured the piano. I didn’t really care for the sound of the track, as I always saw this as a guitar song. I took the song over to Jonathan Crone, a local musician. He added some very cool guitar parts, and now I’m loving the track. You can still hear the“Keane“ piano in there in spots. Turned out to be one of the best songs in the album in my opinion.
DON’T BE AFRAID
This song goes back to the days of the recording of my album “Voice of the Wind”. I was experimenting with different ways to record that live worship album. I tried first to make the studio into a praise atmosphere. We actually brought about 30 people into the studio. But the configuration of the studio, built in a garage, did not allow the kind of connection I needed with the audience, and I only got a few usable songs. I then thought it would be cool to just be in the studio alone, and record by myself, alone with God. That also did not work too well, but I did get the most amazing song called “The Tear”. Recorded in one shot, it appears on the album “Evening, Shadows“. The last thing I tried was to bring remote recording equipment into different venues and record in a live atmosphere.. This worked the best, and I got the bulk of that album from those sessions.
But this isn’t the story of that album.
In those first sessions in the garage, the only other musician recording with me was my friend, Burleigh Drummond, the drummer from the group Ambrosia. I recorded the song the first time there. It was much slower than what appears on the new album. The verses to me have a Leonard Cohen vibe. The chorus is inspired by my favorite DooWop group, “The Flamingos“.
Lyrically, it’s pretty straightforward.
SHOW ME YOUR WAYS
Based on the Bible passage from Psalm 25:4-12, this was one of the more recent songs written for the album. Most of my songs are written with the music and the lyrics coming at the same time. But this time I had some great lines I wanted to use from that Psalm. So I shaped the music more to the lyrics then vice versa. Not a lot to say about it, just that it’s a modern musical interpretation of that psalm .
SPEAK HIS NAME
A very special song to me. I was ministering to a group of teenagers at North Hollywood Assembly in CA many years ago. At the end of the service, I had the kids come up to individually pray for them. Many of the reasons they brought to me for prayer were shocking, considering the area which would be considered to be upper middle class. They were experiencing as many painful things as kids in any other area. As I drove home after prayer, I had a burden on my heart for these kids. It followed me home.
I went to the piano and wrote the song pretty much in one sitting. I made a demo of it later, but again it was shelved for many years.
For some reason, I wasn’t thinking of this song for this album. But one day, I felt the Lord prompt me specifically to record it. This doesn’t happen very often. When we came to record it for this album, the musicians listened to my demo, and felt a more delicate approach might be a good idea. The piano player, Jason Webb, came up with that amazing riff at the front and the end, and changed the whole mood of the song.
I thought it would be a fitting close to the album.
BY THE WAY (bonus track)
This song was written way back probably around 1980. I don’t want to get into the detailed story here, but I struggled with alcohol addiction as a Christian. When I got delivered, I realized what pain I had put my wife through during those years. I wrote this song for her, as a song of repentance and love. I made a demo, but I didn’t play it for her for over 30 years. There were a few lines in the song where I thought, “I don’t know if I can live up to that“. When I finally decided to record the song around 2010, I finally played her the demo. We had a “Kodak moment“, and went ahead with the recording. It’s a song that can speak to both sides of addiction. There is the addict and the spouse of the addict. This song can speak to both from different perspectives.
