John Dandrea

This is the title track to the album.  It was written in 1980, especially for the purpose of tying together all these tunes into one album.  The song still has a bit of a country feel to it, and adds some nice vocal harmony and chorus parts. Oh and this photo is one of several that best represents the song as well as the album - love it!

Technical:  It was a couple decades before the song was recorded, but finally in 2018, I had two pro musicians help give this song its current "polish" -  lead and chorus vocals, and live acoustic guitar.  I couldn't be more pleased with the results, and I feel this song truly brings together this collection of tunes from my earliest songwriting period.

Chronologically, this song is the earliest one  I had ever written, although I chose to lead off with the title track.  It's a very simple folk-guitar song using just a few basic chords.  Decades later, as I had the means to create a multi-track digital recording, I was able to fill it out a bit better.

Technical:  I tried to bring up the tempo a bit since it was a very quiet, slow ballad.  I was working with a friend at Gambler's Choice Studios  for mixing and mastering help - and he came up with this nice jazz-style drum kit that worked very well.  I used some seabird and waves sound bits for the kind of day-at-the-beach feeling I was after, and I even added a small flute part for the break.

Written in July 1977  while on a  flight to Germany, to Berlin.  I was an Army soldier then, all of 19, never been out of my home state let alone overseas.  I was thrilled and terrified at the same time.  I was sitting next to a girl named Irene and during  that very long flight as we chatted, she  turned to me and asked me to write a song just for her.   And being the hopeless romantic that I already was, this tumbled out.

Technical: It took so long to finally record this song - I think I was more challenged by most  other songs on the album and I recorded those first, knowing I'd come back to this special one. This song joins the other  ballads that are very special to me, and I smile when I remember that flight.

This was just a really fun song to write and to record.  I was focusing on the difficulty between men and women in communicating, and the need to "translate" to each other as though we were from totally different planets. The need to "read between the lines".

Technical:  I used a formula of solid rock beat and rolling bass line, heavy harmony vocals, and even threw in a bit of a Beach-Boys vocal style in places.  I also enjoy adding a bit of piano in some of these songs as a bridge part and just keeping up some keyboard playing which I always still love, no matter how many sampled digital sounds the studio has to offer.  The overall effect on this one, I really like.

I wrote this song while still in college, and I was writing about the discoveries I was making about women (remember I was only 19 at the time!)   I saw qualities in some women that were very important to me.  A beauty within, a loving and giving nature, and a genuine concern for others.  And those very-feminine qualities I came to admire so much. . . .

This special Lady inspired me by the way she gave such love to everything and was such a true friend.   I wrote this song as a thank-you for showing me those qualities.  It's a very personal joy to me now, decades later, that this is one of my wife's most favorite songs. It's one of mine as well, and I feel that it fits the album perfectly.

Written in 1980, it's a companion song to Pocketful of Songs, and  written especially for this collection.  It's up-beat and simple.   I purposely wrote it to be focused on expressing feeling rather than complex lyrics.  I wanted to use a strong melody with  harmony, and was getting interested in 3-4 part vocal harmonies at the time.  

Technical:  Early recordings were made, but it wasn't until much later  that I recorded all-new instrument tracks, along with the pro team of Abigail on vocals and Hugo on acoustic guitar.   I am so really pleased with the resulting recording.  I feel this is one of my best works, and consider it one of my "signature songs" best representing my emerging musical "sound".

This song wasn't recorded until 2018.  It was written in 1981, during the time I was in the military and stationed in Texas for a few years.  Some country influence in my music was inevitable.  I wrote this song for acoustic guitar, with a bouncing kind of beat - decades after, the current mix has much more of a country-rock beat. 

The lyrics are full of imagery of riding a horse while working in the fields, "jumping haystacks, making fun out of work".  At the final verse, we find that all of the chores mentioned earlier as being done by this "cowboy Billy", is actually a woman. I liked adding that little bit of a twist to the story line.  This song was a particular favorite with my Mom.