About The Album
30 years ago, I read a poem by one of the earliest Irish poets, Amergin Glúingel. His incantation shook me: "I am the wind on the sea, I am the wave of the deep”. The poem soon became a song, though it wasn’t quite complete until I added the spark of Thich Nhat Hhan in the last verse; that our 'real name' includes all things.
I kept a keen eye for other lilting and lyrical works — and was handed Ntozake Shange's poem titled, "Where the Heart Is" during a particularly challenging time in my life. That poem sang itself into my heart as Shange offered an antidote to my self-critical mind: "Fill it with kisses".
"The Angel" by William Blake came to me during the swirl of fathering two young boys. I understood Blakes warning: Angels are trying to help you; push them away at your own peril. In the end, Blakes' angel is rebuffed "soon my angel came again, but I was armed he came in vain". By then it was too late. Do we all shoo unseen helpers from our lives? I added the chorus of 'do do do's...' to remind me to keep things light while trying (sometimes in vain) to remember the angels at our door. )
The title, "Marvelous Error!" comes from Antonio Machado's poem, "Last Night As I Was Sleeping". There’s a Rumi-like resonance in Machado’s recognition that, "it is God I have here inside my heart". If that wasn't enough to have me rush to my guitar, then this line surely did: "And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures". Throughout this album I take poetic license — here I removed the words 'white combs' because making honey from old failures doesn't require 'white combs' to make its' point.
Edgar Allen Poe writes of dreams within dreams, so why not have poems within poems? I included Poe's "A Dream Within a Dream" — featuring Chris Burger (of Oakland's Luv Phenomena) — as a spoken word romp at the end of "Last Night...". I love the interplay of Poe/Machado.
And then there is "Sweet Darkness". This poem offers a not-so-subtle remedy for life — especially during a global pandemic. David Whyte's soul-stirring poem suggests that it is: "Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own". There have been some dark times during this pandemic, and also lots of opportunities to examine what ‘brings us alive’ (and what doesn’t). In a pandemic post on Facebook, Whyte says, "Sweet Darkness was written in a kind of defiant praise of this difficult time of not knowing, a letter of invitation to embrace the beauty of the night and of the foundational human experience of not being able to see..."
The last addition and most recently completed song wasn't a poem at all. Rainer Maria Rilke's prose, "Faces", is a story about the many persona we show the world. After reading this piece years ago, the lines that stayed with me — the one that I built the song around — is this: "when the homeless are thinking you should not disturb. Perhaps their idea will still occur". I value the idea of giving people space to connect with what is true within themselves, and supporting them to reconnect with their sense of Self and their innate and irrefutable value.
Thank you to all the musicians to brought their brilliance to this project. While the pandemic prevented us from being in the same room, it didn't stop us from being connected. Thanks to Gareth Walters for bringing the heart/hive to life, and to Darya Malikova for the lovely bees. Big thanks to my co-producer, Steve Savage, for the partnership, patience and professionalism.
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