Another rare instance in which I wrote the music BEFORE the lyrics. I was just playing around on the piano and trying to come up with something very torchy to include in the big band styled bonus tracks for SAD SACK. Once I'd achieved the melody, I needed a libretto. As I'd done a year earlier with bonus tracks for THE TRICK, I tweeted a query for suggestions. And, also as before, my first (and best) reply came from artist extraordinaire, Ivan Chan. The parameters I'd est

As I mentioned in my prior entry, Fuse I & II are a two-song musical suite, the continuation of a single story. And while Fuse I is a waltz-time creepy ballad, Fuse II really swings in the big band style. I don't know that I have any interesting "making of" stories for this one: Adam did his part (keyboards and composing the horns section) in England; Steve Jankowski played horns; Jacque improvised a kick-ass bass line that he nailed in just a couple of takes; and Paul's d

I actually wrote the music to this song before I wrote the lyrics. I know that's how most songwriters compose; typically, I work in reverse, crafting a narrative first, followed by the music. Anyway, the music was this lovely lullabye. But the longer I played it, the more I got this creepy image in my hand of some sadistic scenario a la BOXING HELENA of some "caregiver" who really was more of a collector than anything else, and thus were born the lyrics. Because I wasn't t

So here's another brand-new track from my just-released EP "Sad Sack." I was actually inspired to write this track by a rather scathing review of Ben Folds's WAY TO NORMAL album, which claimed that Ben Folds basically wrote nothing but snarky kiss-off songs. Of course the reviewer was, in my opinion, way off mark. But I thought... So what? Even if that WAS all Ben Folds did (he doesn't), are they GOOD snarky kiss-off songs? Are they melodic? Are they clever and poignant