Birdsong At Morning
Annals of My Glass House 

Release Date: February 15, 2011
2024 Remaster Release Date: July 19, 2024
Deluxe box set including four CDs, a full length concert DVD, and a gorgeous 48 page book with lyrics, images, and essays.

Lyrics

Bound (disc 1)

  • It's been a long time since I welcomed you in,
    And buried your treasure map under my skin
    And worshipped a face that was lit from within,
    By love

    And walking the streets holding on to your hand,
    With the words pouring out like the hourglass sands
    I'm riding a wave that I don't understand,
    So fleeting

    So tell me, tell me, tell me what I'm feeling

    'Cause language will falter and fall from our grasp,
    And the vacuum of space is a silence so vast
    It's the distance that tells us that something has passed,
    Between us

    Of all of the wonderful lessons I've learned
    When a song has been sung it can not be unheard
    And though I've forgotten those beautiful words

    I still remember, I still remember, I still remember,
    What they mean

    Alan Williams © 2008 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Well I set out in search of things too dumb to mention
    But I lost my way, I lost my nerve
    I didn't notice, wasn't paying much attention
    Will my prodigal soul return?

    I set a match to everything that once had mattered
    But some bridges can't be burned
    I'll find my way back home by the wreckage I left scattered
    When my prodigal soul returns

    Forgive me for the road I'm on
    Forgive me where everything went wrong
    Forgive me for being gone so long

    So put an end to all the rumor and conjecture
    I got what I deserved
    Now after many one-too-many misadventures
    Will my prodigal soul return?

    Yeah I, I will
    Return

    Alan Williams © 2008 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Tomorrow cannot come soon enough for me
    Tonight I'm as sure as I will ever be
    I waited for answers and the answers never came
    I cast out my demons, now there's no one else to blame

    And nothing is ever good enough for me
    The surface is never all there is to see
    I reached out for something and I held it in my hand
    But when I looked closer, I began to understand

    That when I thought I'd found it
    When I thought I'd found it
    It was just wishful thinking
    Wishful thinking
    Wishful thinking of you

    The night has opened its secrets up to me
    In darkness, the stark relief of clarity
    We slip into focus then we slowly drift apart
    Lost in the depths of our unfathomable hearts

    And when I thought I knew her
    When I thought I knew her
    It was just wishful thinking
    Wishful thinking
    Wishful thinking of you

    Do all of us wonder just how long we can endure
    While falling apart together, shaken and unsure

    That when we say I love you
    When we say I love you
    Is it just wishful thinking
    Wishful thinking
    Am I in wishful thinking with you?

    Alan Williams © 2008 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Lying with my eyes to the sky
    Watching stars and satellites go by
    Lonesome as a song, lonesome as a song
    On the radio

    Lying with my ear to the ground
    Waiting that engine to come round
    Making make-believe, making make-believe
    I don't have to go

    But oh, flowers in my head
    Roses for my bed
    In summer
    Hanging by a thread
    Something good she said
    Is coming, coming soon

    I'll make believe I'll leave it all behind
    An emptiness, never hard to find
    Promises and lies, promises and lies
    And the drifting snow
    Staring at the shadows on the wall
    Waiting for the icicles to fall
    Only killing time, only killing time
    Til it's time to go

    But oh, flowers in my head
    Roses for my bed
    In summer

    Hanging by a thread
    Something good she said
    Is coming, coming true

    Alan Williams © 2008 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Taken in by her unspoken words
    Singing as she tries not to be heard
    Conjuring a world out of thin air
    A terrifying burden she must bear

    Broken silences will echo in the deepest dark
    Broken silences will guide me to her heart

    How can so much sadness be so sweet
    And all of the joy so incomplete
    Searching for a reason not to cry
    The beauty of the moments passing by

    Reaching for a dream she can embrace
    That love is enough to fill the space

    Reaching for a dream she can embrace
    That love is enough
    Could be enough
    Might be enough to say
    That love is enough today

    Alan Williams © 2008 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Sorry, these lyrics are not ours to share.

    Deborah Harry and Chris Stein © 1979

 

 Heavens (disc 2)

  • The starting of the day, you feel the first sun rays
    Full of possibility
    Rising out of bed, she's foggy in the head
    Floating in tranquility
    Coffee in her hand
    The things that she has planned
    Spring to life like flowers from a seed

    Off and on her way, she's making out ok
    The morning train pulls slowly in
    She'll leave the grand parade, for the tools of her trade
    A telescope and fountain pen

    Look into the lens
    See how the light bends
    Stretching to infinity

    Astronomy – discoveries
    Astronomy – the mysteries
    Astronomy – of what will be
    Astronomy – wait and see

    She's moving down the aisle, I look her way and smile
    Through the window from my seat
    Relativity is all the same to me
    Parallel lines never meet
    Measuring a space
    Too big to calculate
    The chance and probabilities

    Measuring the space
    Too deep to contemplate
    Stretching to infinity

    Alan Williams © 2009 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • The comet forms an arc that radiates so brightly
    It burned a hole into the sky
    From out of nowhere soon to disappear forever
    With just the faintest of goodbyes

    The light in the window
    Tells me your home
    It beckons to me
    But I'm light years gone

    The core is frozen and the surface is on fire
    It rages silently in space
    A bullet fragment ricocheting through the cosmos
    And vanishing without a trace

    The changing orbits of two bodies still in motion
    A chance collision in the dark
    The core is frozen and my surface is on fire
    And I am vanishing

    Alan Williams © 2009 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Cold and still like a frozen ocean
    Skating past in the slowest motion
    Molten steel like a burst of autumn
    Falling fast and there is no bottom

    Blood on my hands, blood on my hands

    Help me now, the sky is falling
    Sing to me of dreams
    Hold me now, the earth is trembling
    Tearing at the seams
    Caught up in a current
    Rushing headlong to the sea
    But all the water in the river
    Will not wash me clean

    Accidents, chaos and disorder
    Lying still, fear will take me over
    Violence, sharp and mystifying
    Bends my will, still I won't deny it

    Alan Williams © 2009 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • So we rode into the night
    'Til the sun vanished from sight
    Falling back to follow your lead
    'Til your trail is all that I believe

    In this state of grace, no one stands alone
    We will breathe as one, flesh and blood and bone

    Take the boat out on the sea
    As the sky begins to bleed
    Drifting out far from the shore
    Find the strength to let go the oars

    In that empty space, nothing stands apart
    I will disappear out beyond the stars

    Alan Williams © 2009 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Midnight, silent as a photograph
    Silent as a mirrored glass
    In pieces

    A whisper, floating on an ocean breeze
    Floating on a wave that keeps
    Its secrets
    But I don't want to look in the eyes of heaven
    I don't want to see what I can't believe
    I don't want to run to the arms of Jesus
    I just want to keep the mystery

    Mystery calls, floating over garden walls
    Floating like a wordless song
    Surrounds you

    And time stops, frozen like a broken clock
    Frozen like the rain that drops
    Around you

    Search light, soaring in the dead of night
    Soaring like a wing to guide
    The starless

    And time flies, high above a metal sky
    High above the space that hides
    The darkness

    Alan Williams © 2009 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Sorry, we can't offer their lyrics.

    Mick Jagger and Keith Richard © 2009 ABKCO Music Inc. (BMI)

 

Vigil (disc 3)

  • Wait another night for the morning light to appear
    Watching time unravel, extinguishing the years
    Keeping to myself my solitary sins
    From beautiful companions nameless to the end

    But who will wait for the light fading away
    And who will stay for the counting of numbered days

    The ghosts of my life scattered by the winds
    A broken line of disenchanted lovers and friends
    Their faces disappear and memories take wing
    Flying like a bird in my bed about to sing

    But who will wait for the light fading away
    And who will stay for the counting of numbered days

    The future steals the past like a thief in the dark
    And every memory ends with a question mark
    So I wait another night, wait another year
    Letting time erase, 'til my conscience is clear

    Alan Williams © 2009 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Strange are the hours
    In the late autumn showers
    When the mist rises up from the field
    Under death's spell
    I will lay as i fell
    Waiting for all that will be revealed

    So far away
    As the night follows day
    She will turn down the lamp that once burned
    There in the dark
    She will know in her heart
    That her true love will never return

    Turning the light out

    Sweet were the nights
    In the soft candlelight
    When the fires were lit in our hearts
    Come to me now
    In the dream's solemn vow
    That all lovers are never to part

    So far from home
    I am lost and alone
    And the darkness has swallowed me whole
    Tell me again
    Softly, like an amen
    Let your words come envelope my soul

    The blessed peace
    Of the gentle release
    Let your prayer come to carry me home
    Tell me again, softly like an amen

    Alan Williams © 2009 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Sorry, we can't offer their lyrics.

    King Crimson, © 1981 Universal Music Careers obo "EG Music, Ltd." (BMI)

  • Now that the lights have dimmed and silence falls like a hymn
    The arms of a broken man reach for an open hand
    Longing to be restored, the bottle already poured
    Moments that never pass bring my lips to the glass

    Drink to the poison curse
    Drink to the miracle cure
    Drink to the memory
    Drink to the remedy

    A remedy – bitter and pale
    A remedy – nursing a heart that failed

    There's something familiar here, the fragrance of bitter tears
    Burns in the finest grain and echoes in soft refrains
    And now that her eyes are dry, the song of her last goodbye
    A kiss that will quickly fade, a lingering serenade

    A serenade - broken and frail
    A serenade – sung to a heart that failed

    Suddenly opened doors and footsteps upon the floor
    The arms of a younger man reach for an open hand

    Waltzing across the yard, a tango beneath the stars
    Stepping through centuries, living in memory

    A memory – faded and veiled
    A memory – held in the heart that failed

    Alan Williams © 2009 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • I have loved you it’s true
    I have wondered aloud at the grace
    Of a bird as she flew
    With a wave of her hand
    Never touching the ground where I stand

    Every gesture she makes
    Every movement a storm leaving
    Scattered debris in its wake
    But a delicate touch
    I remember that much

    I love you still
    Although the years fade into memory
    I love you still
    Your distant kiss still feels so real to me
    So near to me, so near

    A promise was made
    You embodied my ideal of heaven
    But now it’s betrayed
    Still your words remain clear
    And your voice never seemed so near

    There’s a choice I must make
    To follow your footsteps
    And relive the same mistakes
    So, though it may not be true
    This is how I will choose to remember you

    Alan Williams © 2009 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Thank you for your muted response
    And turning from a loved one to a stranger
    I'm learning not to say it all at once
    Learning how to recognize the danger

    Thank you for the hollow in your voice
    Your delicate and eloquent appraisal
    I'm listening as if I had a choice
    Of hearing something other than betrayal

    Au revoir, mon ami
    We've come to a parting of the ways
    Au revoir, mon ami
    In your eyes I recognize
    There's nothing left to say
    More or less
    Less is more
    Au revoir

    Thanks for the resistance in your touch
    Your love for me withheld in hesitation
    I've learned to live with needing it too much
    So, I'll take the distance as my consolation

    Alan Williams © 2009 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

 

Lumens (disc 4)

  • So I am waiting for the morning sun
    And I am waiting for my time to come
    I'm waiting for that starting gun
    For the sound, like a thunderclap
    Stops my heart, and starts again
    Infinite lines on the road map
    Take a running leap

    And, go – Bounding out in the velvet indigo
    And, go – Finding out in the velvet indigo

    And I can see it in your eyes you've waited too
    And I have heard the voices that are calling you
    And I have witnessed miracles out of the blue
    In the night, when the fire is out
    With the cold creeping in
    Cast aside your coat of crippling doubt

    Just let it go – Wrap yourself in the velvet indigo
    And, go – Release yourself in the velvet indigo

    'Til the night, comes to take you in
    When the darkness starts to fall
    Catch the light that you're breathing in

    And, go – Diving down in the velvet indigo
    And, go – Lighting out in the velvet indigo
    And, go – Dissolving into the velvet indigo
    And, go – Exalt yourself in the velvet indigo

    Go

    Alan Williams © 2010 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • I can't help myself, from falling down
    Can't help myself, when you're not around
    Can't help myself, I know it's true
    Can't help myself, but what can I do?

    Can't help myself, my weakness is strong
    I've paid any price to sell myself short, for so very long
    Can't help myself, I know that it's wrong
    Drawn to the light, can't stay away, I'm hopelessly gone

    I can't help myself, I'm upside down
    Can't help myself, I'm all turned around
    Can't help myself, I'm inside out
    Can't help myself, absolutely in doubt

    Can't help myself, I'm trouble bound
    I laugh 'til I cry, feel so uptight, I'm coming unwound

    I can't help myself, from falling down
    Can't help myself, when you are around
    Can't help myself, too much, too soon
    Can't help myself, I'm over the moon

    I can't help myself, it's sad but true
    I can't help myself, and I don't want to!

    Alan Williams © 2010 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Maria sends a telegram
    To let me know that nothing lasts
    Open windows, closing doors
    And all that was, is no more
    And never will

    Maria, I don't understand
    Your words refuse an open hand
    “Give me a chance," I will implore
    Like every man who came before
    And ever will

    Light out for the heartland
    Far as eyes can see
    There's no place for me

    Maria loved the sound of trains
    The smell of grass in summer rains
    Washing away the dirt and dust
    The dream of spring we come to trust
    'Til winter comes

    Maria, I was halfway there
    Turning down the road we shared
    Everything, or none at all
    You had a choice and made the call
    Thy will be done

    And all the things you left behind
    The remnants of a troubled time
    Photographs of fishing boats
    With empty nets and unread notes
    That said it all

    Light out for the heartland
    Yearning to be free
    It's too late for me

    Light out for the heartland
    Skies are growing dark
    It's too late to start

    Alan Williams © 2010 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Sorry we can't offer the lyrics.

    Christine McVie © 1979 Universal Music Careers (BMI)

  • Lightning strikes, cold winds blow
    Water will rise above the seeds we sow
    The evil we see, the evil we are
    The soul a massive black hole, swallowing stars

    Innocence lost, the pure defiled
    Every monster once some mother's child
    Release the soul, let it take flight
    So in the darkest heart, let there be light
    Let there be light!

    Down in the hole, the plots and schemes
    The acid tongue, the mad corrosive dreams
    Thick is the air, and filled with dread
    From all the tortured logic in your head
    A terrible fate, the nightmare plan
    The itchy trigger finger, murderous hands
    But locked away, hidden from sight
    In the darkest heart, there must be light

    There must be light

    Lightning strikes, cold winds blow
    Water will rise above the seeds we sow
    Beware the fear, its grip is tight
    Beware the hearts of darkness, follow the light
    Follow the light, let there be light

    Amidst the cries, the endless grief
    Clinging to one last faltering belief
    Whisper a prayer, deep in the night
    Someday the darkest heart will find its light

    Alan Williams © 2010 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Worlds are blooming, just outside your window
    A menagerie of petalled rainbows
    Like little prizes under the skies of blue
    A garden full of morning glories

    But you won't see them, inside the shades are drawn
    Another shadowed gray day is dawning
    Tears are flowing from your eyes of blue
    There's nothing you can do about them

    Rain clouds are forming, and pouring
    Nothing left to do, but let them
    Cool the tired earth below
    Where birds will sing of flowers growing

    And life continues, in the sleepy village
    Days will pass into the evening stillness
    A fond adieu to the sinking skies of blue
    The moon has come to tell you stories

    Dream worlds will hold you, enfold you
    Let the midnight hour awake you
    Tumbling from your slumbers
    Where the comfort of my arms awaits you

    And in the dawning, when the sun is rising
    There's a brand new light, on your horizon
    Wondrous surprises, open your eyes of blue
    “Good morning, little morning glory"

    Alan Williams © 2010 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

  • Catch me, I'm falling, falling for you
    Catch me, I'm falling, falling for you
    So many years apart, together, so few
    So catch me, I'm falling, falling for you

    And I'm over my head, over my head
    Over my head in love with you

    I made resolutions, more than a few
    I made resolutions and broke them in two
    They're so overused these words, so tried and true
    But catch me, I'm falling in love with you

    Yes, I'm over my head, I'm over my head
    Overly overwhelmed and overjoyed
    By you

    So tell me you're falling, tell me it's true
    Tell me you're falling, I know what to do
    Now, don't keep me waiting, it's long overdue
    Just tell me you're falling
    And I'll follow you

    Alan Williams © 2010 Under a Metal Sky Music (BMI)

 

Credits

Alan Williams: lead vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonium, percussion, string arrangements
Darleen Wilson: acoustic and electric guitar, harmony vocals
Greg Porter: bass, harmony vocals
Ben Wittman: drums, percussion
Fabio Pirozollo: percussion on "Astronomy," "Mystery" and "Moonlight Mile"
Jerry Leake: percussion on "Clean," "Light in the Window," "Mystery," and “Light”
Anne Elise Thomas: qunun on "Adrift," and “The Heart That Failed”
David Gutierrez: orchestral drums on "Light"
Kevin Barry: lapsteel on "Velvet Indigo" and "Heartland"
Marissa Licata: first violin
Maximillian Haft: second violin (Bound and Heavens)
Stephanie Skor: second violin (Lumens)
Rose Wollman: viola (Bound and Heavens)
Helen Sherrah-Davies: five-string violin (Vigil and Lumens)
Catherine Bent: cello

Produced by Alan Williams
Bass and drums (Ben Wittman) recorded by Roy Hendrickson, assisted by Aki Nishimura, at Avatar Studios in New York City.
Strings recorded by Antonio Oliart at Fraser Performance Studio, WGBH in Boston.
Fabio, Jerry, and Anne Elise recorded in their homes by Alan Williams with the Backpack Mobile system.
All other performances recorded by Alan Williams at The Aviary (Mach 1 and 2).
Mastered by Mark Donahue at Soundmirror in Jamaica Plain, MA.

Photography by Julia Margaret Cameron

About The Music

Annals of My Glass House | Birdsong At Morning

Release Date: February 15, 2011
Deluxe box set including four CDs, a full length concert DVD, and a gorgeous 48 page book with lyrics, images, and essays.

 

Bound (disc 1)

  • Ah, beginnings. This song is based on a recollection of my first "date" with Darleen, the exhilarating rush of discovering someone as we walked through the streets of Boston, talking non-stop. Nearly two decades later, the feeling remains.

    This song is also important for Birdsong as it was one of the first that we recorded, and one that defined the template for our sound when the sound of strings would not leave my brain, demanding that we try to record a string arrangement. It could have gone so many ways wrong, but as soon as the players began to read through the chart, we caught a glimpse of the future.

  • About a character who has followed a path into the deep dark woods, and now desperately wants to make his way back home, though much of this journey might have only occurred "in his heart" (to paraphrase Jimmy Carter).

    Not exactly biographical, but who hasn't ever exclaimed, "What was I thinking?" At least internally.

  • An uncomfortable acknowledgement of the doubt that creeps into many relationships. But to raise the question doesn't render a foregone conclusion. This recorded performance has been modified slightly from its initial release.

    One line of the lyric was changed, corrected really, as I mis-sang it on the first version. We also employed technology to give a little more rhythmic push to the arrangement. Hey, it was our first time out.

  • This is the song that led to forming the band. After a long, long dry spell, Roses emerged from experiments with altered guitar tunings, in this case a standard Hawaiian slack key system. Conceived (appropriately enough) while in Hawaii, the second verse came to me upon our return to a sub-zero New England winter, as I was literally staring out the window at the massive icicles, longing for the lush tropical breezes.

    During one of the 'living room' sessions that we periodically organized with a loose affiliation of musician friends, only Darleen, Greg, and myself showed up. I hesitantly played them my new song, and they spontaneously created the harmonies on the chorus. That sound told us we might be on to something, and it's a joy for me to hear their voices whenever we perform this song.

  • About the unbearable tension between having something to say, and being terrified that someone might hear. Anyone who has ever embarked on a creative endeavor will know the feeling of anxiety associated with a first hearing/viewing/reading of a new work. And yet, so many of us are compelled against our natures to share.

    This song is meant as a little nudge of encouragement. I was proud of the guitar part as it required that I move my left-hand fingers up and down the neck while maintaining a very specific finger pattern in the right hand. A considerable challenge for a guitar-playing pianist. Never too late to try something new.

  • Several years ago, a group of my students at UMass Lowell initiated a concert to celebrate women in popular music. After being stunned by the quality of the performances at the first show, I wheedled my way onto the bill the following year, selecting this Blondie song as my contribution. This event was significant for me as it was my first public performance in many years, and solo at that.

    The positive response from the audience was an enormous boost to my confidence, and gave further fire to the notion of forming a band. Cover songs have always loomed large in my musical world. My senior recital at New England Conservatory was composed completely of radically altered arrangements of pop songs. When I played this song to Greg, he immediately pushed for its inclusion in our repertoire. Good call Greg.

 
 

Heavens (disc 2)

  • In the mid 1980s, Suzanne Vega's debut album turned my synth-immersed head around. Her minimalist lyrics, and especially her very precise and sparse guitar playing sounded so different from what I had long dismissed as "folk music." There's an element of her style in this guitar part, not consciously so, but in hindsight, so clearly present. Like a lot of my songs, this one long consisted of nonsense syllables, with the word "lobotomy" coming closest to real language. But that just didn't seem to match the feel of the music. After several weeks, I finally sat down to create a list of words that had the same or similar sounds to the syllables. Working alphabetically, "astronomy" came first. It became a short list.

    Coincidently, we were already thinking about the packaging of our CDs, looking through the work of Julia Margaret Cameron to maintain the mood established by the cover of Bound. I stumbled upon a set of portraits she took of Sir John Herschel, an astronomer (and son of the much more important astronomer, William Herschel – making Sir John sort of the Julian Lennon of the astronomy scene). Thus we hit upon an album cover, a theme for the record, and a setting for this song. The rest of the lyric was inspired by Darleen's nephew and his wife, both brilliant neuroscientists, who also do normal things like making coffee and taking the subway.

  • I'm from Asheville, North Carolina, as is the author, Thomas Wolfe. This is my version of You Can't Go Home Again. The cosmic imagery comes courtesy of our Heavens theme. The lyric came quickly while sitting on a Cape Cod beach. Not sure why sunny spaces bring out the darkness in me – "Wishful Thinking" was largely written on a beach as well.

    This song is one of my favorites as the lyric maintains the metaphor while fully setting down the elusive feeling I hoped to convey. As a recording, Darleen's guitar takes this performance to another world, and Greg's vocal harmony feels like velvet. So much warmth contributed to a song about being frozen.

  • This song is about misplaced guilt and feeling responsible for things entirely out of one’s control. Inspired by a moment when I thought I might be witnessing the death of a friend, I’m pleased to see he made a full recovery, while I used this song to rid myself of the residual trauma of witnessing the accident.

    As is often the case for me, the music grew out of some guitar ramblings and soon coalesced into melody and structure, alas, without words. I struggled with it for months until one morning after a strenuous yoga class, while lying on my back for a well-earned savasana, the complete chorus text came flooding into my now opened mind. I should lie around on the floor more often….

  • For several years, I participated in a long distance bike ride (500 miles in five days) called Ride Far. This event benefited the providers of Hiv/AIDS resources, and a small group of riders and crew raised over a million dollars over the course of eleven rides. Because of the nature of the event, and the small number of participants, close, deep, and lasting bonds were formed. The first verse of this song was inspired by the sight of thin tire tracks, left on the pavement just after a light rain, 4 days in, at the 395 mile mark.

    By this point, exhaustion left me fairly brain dead, and I would have followed those tracks anywhere. Of course they were left by one of my bonded brethren just a few feet ahead of me. But they led me safely home. Ok, not to home, but to a bunk bed in a campground – such comfort, such bliss. The second verse was inspired by the ending of the film, Children of Men. In such grey blankness, hope..

  • About the inexhaustible search. Not a rebuke of belief, but a song in praise of unanswered questions. I'm content to leave the intangible untouched.

    Not everyone in the band is a fan of the song, but for some folks in the audience, it's the main reason to come to a show. Who knows why this is. It's a mystery..

  • Once the astronomical theme had been established for Heavens, we needed to find a cover song with cosmic imagery. I remembered this song from the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers – the hypnotic guitar part and gorgeous strings (and Nicky Hopkins' delicate piano work) has always stood apart from most of the Stones catalog.

    When I was a teenager, I spent a long sleepless night listening to the radio after my true love introduced me to her boyfriend. At around 3am, this song came on the radio. Something about that guitar line just resonated, the closest I've come to God speaking to me. Let the airwaves flow.

 

Vigil (disc 3)

  • This song was suggested by the specter of loss that follows Alzheimer's disease, as well as a cautionary tale for folks that move quickly through relationships without establishing real bonds. Who's going to remember you when you can't remember yourself?

    When I was a teenager, I spent a long sleepless night listening to the radio after my true love introduced me to her boyfriend. At around 3am, this song came on the radio. Something about that guitar line just resonated, the closest I've come to God speaking to me. Let the airwaves flow.

  • The guitar part suggests an Appalachian dulcimer, an instrument I remember trying to play with a Bic pen in a third grade workshop. The lyric was inspired by a series of photographs taken on the battlefields at Gettysburg, and I wrote it from the perspective of a soldier at the moment of his death, imagining his sweetheart.

    The title comes from a quote in an Alex Ross story about the composer Aaron Copland, whose last instructions to a string ensemble in rehearsal were, "Very good. Now again, softly, like amen." Sounded like poetry to me, and I held on to the phrase until I could find a song to append it to.

  • Formative years, formative years. Looking back, most of the cover songs we have recorded date from the years 1979/1980. Even the Stones cover comes from an album I bought in 1979, and played obsessively every morning before school.

    This King Crimson song always captivated me with its ethereal beauty. Our setting attempts to capture that mood, established by Adrian Belew's heavily processed electric guitar, with acoustic instrumentation. The title is Japanese for, "please, wait."

  • A song about alcoholism/addiction, a condition I am blessedly free from, as a number of sober friends would concur. While I can't know what that feels like, I can certainly describe what it looks like.

    The last verse was inspired by a Raymond Carver story in which a young couple visits a yard sale, the detritus of a dissolved marriage scattered about the lawn. A record player. A dance.

  • This is the oldest song in our catalog by several decades. Greg and I performed it in a different incarnation during our conservatory years. Our teacher, Ran Blake assigned us some summer reading – Willa Cather's A Lost Lady – and staged a fall concert to include our musical responses. I was very pleased with the verses, but the chorus was all ham-handed drum machine "rock."

    Jump forward a few decades, and a different chorus popped into my head. Now I had a song, but no band to perform it. The seeds for our string section were sown here, and in many ways, Birdsong was formed so that I could perform a song like this. Maybe even this exact one.

  • What happens when friendships fade? The song came from the odd coincidence of three difficult phone conversations in the same week, all unexpectedly distant where there had once been deep and easy connection.

    Somewhere out there is a guy waiting to hear this over the radio at 3am.

 

Lumens (disc 4)

  • This song is about the difficulty of writing this song. When we recorded most of the drum tracks in one two day session, a number of songs existed as barely more than fragments. This was one of them. I had no idea what the song was about, no words other than "go." We spent no more than 15 minutes recording the basic track, since it was unclear whether there was a song here at all. But Ben Wittman's drumming really brought the track to life, and it felt too good to drop.

    Still, I couldn't for the life of me come up with the words. The more I tried, the harder it got, until the song so intimidated me that the very thought of it brought me to catatonia. Then one day, "Eureka!" I realized that the song is about this very condition. What have you got to lose, just finish the damned thing. Very post-modern, etc. So emerged a hymn to self-empowerment, written under intense deadline, and sung just days before mastering the last record. Take a running leap...

  • Another fragment recorded in a single take with Ben. Can't help it, I love pop music. Catchy, sing-along choruses, nifty hooks, shiny surfaces and pulsing grooves. Not that I write those, but I do love 'em.

    This song always envisioned the string quartet as the driving force, so it took a little encouragement to convince the rest of the group – "this will work, trust me. Once the string part is there, then it'll be clear." Not sure I won that argument, but I still get a rush out of the string part. Hey, at least it's not another song about dying.

  • During the first year of Birdsong, I booked some solo shows out in the Midwest, spreading the gospel, so to speak. Visions of wheat fields for days, the train station in Days of Heaven, Dorothy's no-place-like-home-Kansas – it all screamed "America."

    Almost a foreign country to me. What if someone ventured there and never came back? Whenever you go, something or someone is always left behind.

  • An overlooked gem from Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, a double album from 1979 that has persistently insinuated itself into my stereo system. So unhip, but a touchstone nonetheless.

    (Hey Matthew Sweet has championed it, and Camper Van Beethoven recorded a cover version of the whole album, so...) I love the ambivalence of the title phrase. Defiant, delusional, accepting.

    You decide.

  • When I was in graduate school, I played in a Middle -Eastern music ensemble, and became enthralled with Arabic pop music, especially the monumental, but incredibly nimble orchestral parts. Once this song came to me on guitar, the unison string counterpoint rang loudly in my head.

    This one took everyone in the band, and the string players too, by surprise. But it was too much fun not to go with it. Conceived as an ode to Dick Cheney (echoing Neil Young's, "Even Richard Nixon's got soul"), the sentiment sadly remains relevant. Put down the gun, there's room at the table.

  • A lullaby to fresh starts. Nearly left off the album because I was unhappy with the mix and my vocal performance. Re-recorded the vocal and remixed the night before the mastering session.

    Thank God we don't work in studios, or many of these songs would never see the light of day.

  • This song had been part of our live shows since shortly after the release of Bound. After all the morose navel gazing, it was a relief to have something upbeat to go out with. But by this time we had sketched out the rough outline of the remaining CDs, and knew the last one would be lighter in tone. So we held it back, even as people kept responding favorably to it in concert.

    Somewhat written for that purpose, the not very deep lyric acknowledges the cliché of the easy, "I'm falling in love with you." But what if you are? Just because it's a cliché, it doesn't mean it can't be real. For such a romantic band, it's kind of impossible to sidestep love.

Videos