From the 2002 album A Time & A Place
Like “Rome” and “September Park” it all came to me at once. I was on vacation, horseback riding on a mountain in Colorado. I was looking out across the horizon at this amazing landscape and it just came to me: words, music, the arrangement, everything. When I got back down to the cabin I wrote it all down on paper. As I began to write, I realized it was the alternating 4/4 and 5/4 bars in the verse. The bass in the verse climbing up, against the chord progression transitions quite well to the chorus; that’s why there’s no pre-chorus in that song. The main song is all in E minor and the guitar solo at the end has shifted to G minor; a nice contrast and compliment. - Corey Schenck
© & ℗ 2000 BMI
From the 1999 album Welcome to the Theatre ...
We rented a beach house a few months before the recording of the second album to write and rehearse in. I wrote the “Fall of Rome” at that time. It’s one of those songs that really came to me in a moment. I’ve no idea how or when that will happen. Words, melody, music - boom! All right there. It was written in the order of the song. I wrote it in 1997, but it’s still relevant today - every word. It’s my own observation and frustration of the world around me at the time. It’s the decline of society - the decadence, the ignorance, narcissism, racism. It’s political corruption, tribalism, and media bias. You see people hiding in their ‘turtle shells’ and pretending everything will be ok while others conforming to mob mentality. It is my own view and you can take or leave it. I don’t really care. - Corey Schenck
© & ℗ 1997 BMI
From the 1997 album The Rite of Passage
I wrote it in under an hour - on my lunch break at the pawn shop I worked at while I was in college. It all came to me at once - the Em to G chord verse and Cmaj9 and Asus chorus, the words and the melody. Most people think it’s a love song to a girl - a jilted love affair story; it’s not. But, it’s good to let people relate to it in any way that they can - a more universal lyric. There aren’t many changes from the original I wrote on that lunch break to what you hear on the album. The biggest change was the ‘spin’ Robert had us put on the title - originally, the lyric was “do you remember...Septembers in the park...”; He told me make it a place, not a time, like The Beatles “Strawberry Fields” or “Penny Lane”. So, it became “September Park”. And that’s one of the many things a great producer will do - they make suggestions that at times are simple - simple and clever - but make the song that much better. - Corey Schenck
© & ℗ 1996 BMI
From the 2002 album A Time & A Place
A great song. Steve’s song. He had an acoustic song we’d played for years with the same title and basic idea, but what he did with it for the album was incredible. The chord changes under the melody are brilliant. He really connects with it and you can hear it in his vocal performance. Most of the song is in four, but we put the guitar solo section in seven - just for Darrell. I played the solo at the end on the Memorymoog. - Corey Schenck
© & ℗ 2000 BMI
From the 1997 album The Rite of Passage
I wrote it around the same time as “September Park”. During my college days I worked at a pawn shop. The song is from my experiences there at the shop in a not-so-great part of town. It was written in the order of the song - intro, verse, chorus, etc. The introduction to that song has always been one of my favorites to play live. We try to leave room for Darrell to play an extended solo at the end of a song on each album, and he never disappoints. - Corey Schenck
From the 1998 album Welcome to the Theatre ...
Ron’s song. A great ballad - a strong melody and direct lyrics. Lyrics that most people can relate to about a lost love. The chorus has great harmony; where other bands might play a straight Em C D progression, it goes Em C/D D/C, with the ‘wrong’ notes in the bass. Those notes continue their descent down the scale. I used a Memorymoog for that rising-jet-like effect at the end.
From the 2002 album A Time & A Place
A second song from Andi’s explorations of the Pecos River Valley. It’s based on another cave painting that had an impact on him. The words and the music - all his. He does several percussion tracks on it and Steve really delivers the vocals. - Corey Schenck
© & ℗ 2000 BMI
From the 1998 album Welcome to the Theatre ...
An allegory. It’s about our destructive nature as man. It’s the story of a man who goes out one evening for a walk to collect his thoughts. He meets a homeless man who says that from his point of view, man is killing man. Then he comes across a dog who tells him that man is destroying the animal kingdom. Lastly, he hears the moon tell him, that from its point of view that man is bringing ruin upon the earth. In the end he comes across a piece of garbage, a bottle, it’s about to speak when it gets shot in a gun fight. That’s when the song comes to an end. I wrote the lyrics and Darrell set it to music. It’s got that strong 7/4 guitar riff with the keyboard ostinato above it. - Corey Schenck
© & ℗1997 BMI
From the 1997 album The Rite of Passage
Written with metal in mind! I wrote the bridge first: the tritone driven, 7/4 meter section, the E5 chord with the perfect and diminished 5th, and we made some noise on top of that - the synth solos, guitar riffs and all. Later, I wrote the verse and chorus - words and melody to go with the bridge. It’s got that heavy metal-prog vibe with those demonic chords, riffs, and irregular meters. The keyboard solo is played on a MemoryMoog that I later bought from Robert and was played by Keith Emerson on the 3 album. The lyrics are a bit fantastical and we received a letter from a church group or Christian record label who wanted to save our souls after they heard it. Ron later gave a copy to a group of nuns in an airport - I’ve no idea what they thought about that. Ironically, the song is about God. God is the Navigator in the song “skimming across the moon beams” and “swimming through a blue dream” is the idea of God in the Spiritual world and coming to us through a dream-state or prayer. The “carnival sounds” represent tent revivals; “the fauns and the babes” is about pagan culture; the “Delta blues tune” is the old, selling one’s soul to the devil folktale, you know, Robert Johnson - the master of the Delta blues; “aristocrats and dregs” are politics getting into religion. The verses are very cynical, but the chorus is the hope. We played a club where these two guys walked in and sat at a table in front of the stage as a song was ending. We kicked in to “Navigator” and during the first verse, they got up and walked out. It was more than they could take. It was hilarious. - Corey Schenck
© & ℗1996 BMI
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