Tag Archives: Perihelion

I Can’t Stop That Now

Posted on by Standard Reply

Here’s the “scratch” version of “I Can’t Stop That Now”. A scratch (short for scratch pad) is a recording for the purpose of developing and conceptualizing a song. It’s a place to lay vocal and instrument tracks in an exploratory and experimental fashion to frame up the final song. It’s another track on my current WIP, the album Perihelion.

I was going to compose a bio of the song and its lyrics, describing “where they came from”, the particulars surrounding the origins of the composition. Sometimes you just get a catchy chord progression going on guitar, and it inspires a mood or a phrase. Sometimes a few lines of lyrics will pop into your head, and they are the embryonic theme on which the rest is constructed. The late, great Jimmy Buffet wrote and recorded a song titled “Clichés”. It’s jam-packed with everyday phrases, and indeed clichés, as it tells a light short story and concludes; “Clichés. Good ways to say what you mean, and mean what you say.”

So that’s all the background I’ll volunteer for “I Can’t Stop That Now”. It’s a bit of a cliché which may have first given birth to the lyric, or the lyrics may have begun before the cliché was stumbled upon.

When I published the poem “I Rise”, which would become the lyrics for the song “Circles”, a reader astonished me with their comment. From their own perspective and objective viewpoint, they interpreted the mood of the piece diametrically opposite of the tenor in which it was written. It was a dark piece, from a depressive place, but the reader interpreted it as something of a motivation to carry on even when times were tough.

And so, I welcome your spin on “I Can’t Stop That Now”.

Paz

Angels

Posted on by Standard 3
Angels

The boy fell to his knees, his face dropped to his hands.
What was I to do, being just a mortal man?
I said “You’re at the end of your rope son, not the end of your road.”
Sometimes you have to help a broken angel with their load.

I see angels all around me. Angels you can see.
Living, breathing angels, right where they ought to be.
My whole world’s full of angels, from sea to shining sea.
It’s a world full of angels waiting for us to let them be.

A man clutched my hands as tears welled in his eyes.
I said “There are no words. We’re never ready to say goodbye.”
Most folks don’t know, sometimes angels need a hand.
He said “No one knows my pain. No one understands.”

I told him “There’s angels all around you. Angels you can see.
Living, breathing angels right where they need to be.
My whole world’s full of angels, from sea to shining sea.
It’s a world full of angels waiting for you and me.”

I see that little baby, sleeping in her bed.
I see the days and weeks and months and years that lay ahead.
Her mother and her brother, and all her kith and kin,
This whole great wide world around her, all the same beneath the skin.

I see angels all around me. Angels you can see.
Living, breathing angels right where they want to be.
My whole world’s full of angels from sea to shining sea.
It’s a world full of angels waiting for us
To set them free.

My songs are not polished recordings ready for airplay, just sketches and renderings of the way they sound in my head. Consider it more like having me over to your house to play a song for you. I’m no Roy Orbison or Bob Dylan when it comes to writing, and no Dave Gilmore on guitar or Steve Tyler on vocals, but I have a great time making these tunes. I’m up to six recordings for “my new album” Perihelion.

Angels has been around a long time. It is a true story. The boy in the first verse is my son. The man in the second verse was a neighbor. The baby in the last verse is my granddaughter Lizzy, now 17.

Look around. You’ll see there are living, breathing angels all around you, too.
Just waiting for you.

Love,

Paz