The
Secret of Bethany’s Mouth
The first of two songs inspired by a novel called Pale
as the Dead by Fiona Mountain, an English romantic
mystery involving a young woman who looks eerily similar
to Pre-Raphaelite artist/model/legend Elizabeth Siddal.
Jenny V
Eric says this about his song: Based on a sad, true story
of a popular girl I went to high school with who, for
some stange and mysterious reasons, loses it and commits
a murder. The story has kind of haunted me since, and
I wanted to write something about it that wasn't all
shock and drama. I wanted the song to suspend the horrorific
parts and focus on the more sensitive and personal
aspect of what took place that year.
Salome
I confess I am not a Bible reader; this song came to
me by way of Richard Strauss’s opera Salome,
which is in turn based on a play by Oscar Wilde. When
the opera was first performed in 1905, many could not
get past its sex and violence; and even today many
might find it disturbing. But, if you are in the mood
for an extremely weird and wild ride, where a teenage
girl’s hormones rage scarily out of control,
it might be the thing for you. Get the DVD with Maria
Ewing! This recording is an abandoned demo I returned
to finish because when I had tried to re-record it “properly,” it
just did not work (which happens to me a lot).
Claire
“
Claire” was a demo as well, with Eric doing a
bit of ad-libbing. I convinced him to finish it, for
I found
it incredibly catchy. It features the Hidden Agenda
debut of my two daughters.
The Black Guitar
We have always wanted this very old song to come out,
but it did not seem to fit any previous album. It is
a sort of minor ode to the mad.
This Haunted Hill
This is a tribute to my wife and a specific remembrance
of a bittersweet time last summer when, in the warmth
of darkness, drowning our sorrows was what I lived
to do.
Gazelle
You have here the original version of this song – before
it was rearranged for the live band recording on Ten
White Stones.
All the Lost Kisses
This is a sort of impression of The Green Pajamas live
that was in fact recorded just one track at a time
like all the other songs. But the spontaneity is real
and certainly the lack of editing is real! I think
this is my favorite on the record. We have all known
the devastation of a love lost. And the hopelessness
when one realizes that the other is never, ever coming
back. I don’t know what prompts me to write of
such sadness. Somehow it makes me feel good.
Pale as the Dead
This eponymous song is from the same novel as “The
Secret of Bethany’s Mouth.” What is that
secret? I have no idea. There is nothing about it in
the novel. However, as Mark Lindsay once said: I can
almost taste it.
Mostly Alice
Originally there was to be an album called simply Séance
in which we would imagine the musings and confessions
of favorite characters from literature and art, this
being another of my bright ideas that would be tossed
aside indefinitely. So, at this indefinite time comes
the one and only song born of this idea, “Mostly
Alice.” Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) was
haunted by the little girl for whom he wrote one of the
most enduring and astounding works of literature, Alice
in Wonderland. At only 8 years of age, Alice Liddell
became one of the great muses of history. Most accounts
agree that Mr. Dodgson’s love for her was pure.
Yet, famously, there were never recovered pages torn
from his diary around the time that Alice’s family
told him he was not to see her ever again. Here I have
imagined the ghost of Mr. Dodgson in confessional séance,
still plagued by her face, and a little more free and
easy with his thoughts and feelings (this being the 21st
century and all). I’ve since wondered about the
wisdom of writing words into the mouths of the dead.
And yet…I find his love romantic. And then one
asks: what is romance without desire? Is it possible?
I wish I could ask him that. Get out the Ouija board!
