What follows is an email to a long-time music buddy of mine, who goes by "Runtime". It serves as an interesting album description. Thanks for your interest.
“Boy to Man”was the launch song for the album. At the time, and for the whole time until March, the album really had no unifying theme. It clearly introduced the graduation idea without my conscious awareness. Still, the graduation exploration flows its way through every song, and with a wide variety of perspectives.
Song 3, "Through Me," was written in the days immediately following the passing of my Aunt Alice Anne, a cherished friend to me. In her final months, she visited most of her family and friends, and made amends where she deemed necessary. Then she returned home, took a nap, and never woke up. Now, that's a graduation.
It was the final three songs, all happening in three weeks that ended on the Spring Equinox, that brought the theme, and with it the song order, into clarity for me. It was an amazing time, and I now see the orchestration of Bear’s graduation was at the heart of it, in anticipation of my awareness and experience. (Mr. Bear was my beloved Dog-Friend of 12 years). The last three happened simultaneously. The opening track, “Intuition”, was written with the thought of being a groover somewhere in the middle. But as I was completing it, and completing “Move Ahead” and “A New Day” too, I new Intuition had to be the opener. Intuition is the navigator, it is the vision “Behind the Wheel”; it is the insight to our “Vibration”; it is our guidance through “Time” (the Now Becoming); etc…
I must admit, the opening track remains my favorite. That and “A New Day”. Both Move Ahead and A New Day were originally written with the boys in mind. (The boys referred to are two 17 year old talented guys who I helped produce an album.) I was watching them turning to face the new worlds that are lining up for them… beyond high school… beyond each other. They were not getting along the last few months, but they were committed to finishing their album and doing the concert with me. Move Ahead was about reframing the doubts and estrangement they were feeling, and focusing on the new journey, knowing that everything that had brought them to this point remains with them. It is all what they have become.
I played them the final mix of A New Day on the Equinox, 3/23. At the time, I told them to hear it as though they were singing to the life they were leaving behind.
Then, Bear had his first of two seizures. At 4:00 am, when he had the 2nd seizure, I new that in the morning light, I’d be taking him to his graduation.
I realized that “A New Day” was for Bear. Check out the words sometime. From beginning to end, it is for Bear. And it had it’s own life, “Through Me”, before I new anything about it.
It ends up being an extraordinary concept album. And for most of the journey, it was a rorshalk (spelling) ink blot, until finally, at the end, I caught up with the vision. It’s why Bear is all over the cover. His ashes are in my room on the dresser. I still put my hands on the box and get a full body god-goose bump rush. Every time.
