To Be Free: The Plea

This whole project began as an effort to raise money.  The thing is, I didn't want to actually have to beg.  I'd considered a GoFundMe, or something like that, but I just couldn't do it this time. Nothing wrong with begging for money, but I've done my share.  So I thought I would offer up some of my songs in a no-shame format, and hope to raise money that way.  Yes, I actually hoped to raise money for an album by releasing an album.  I never said I behaved logically. 

So that's how I began to proceed.  As I began reviewing the material that I was going to release, I began thinking, "With a bit more work here and there, I could really improve these tracks."  And so I did.  But then I wondered: just how good could I make these sound without investing any money into my studio.  And with a little bit of time, they began to sound pretty good to my ears.  At which point, I began to think: well, I don't see why I would revisit these songs again, so I should see how good I can make them.  So to recap: I put in a lot of work to avoid begging for money, and now here I am begging for money.  

People like these songs, so I recommend that you give 'em a listen. If you're looking for something more sophisticated, then buy the album anyway, so I can record more songs.  I can put out about 25 more of these, and the only thing slowing me down is time and money.  You give me the money, I'll give you the time.  

Enjoy!

But it here to give the biggest boost.  iTunes and Spotify count too.

To Be Free: I am the Storm

I Am the Storm

Here the song here. My last week at Undulata, I was in charge of the day-campers, which meant that I didn't have to sleep with any campers.  So I was all alone at night.  I'm pretty sure I wrote this one night while listening to a thunderstorm.  I can't say that I'm the best judge of my own music, but it kills me that at fifteen (and as early as fourteen), I was writing songs that are as good as any I've written since. I remember playing "With the Wind" with Dan for the Showcase auditions, and some cool senior sat next to me and asked if I had any other songs.  I played her this, and she was impressed.  In no other way would I ever be considered "cool,"  but I could make songs that were cool.

There's a weird darkness to the song, and you wouldn't be crazy for thinking that I had a real dark side, but I don't.  Only when I'm being creative do I create things that are really dark.  Still, the song is true if only on a fantasy level.  The song is inhabited with all sorts of villains: torturers, killers, but as bad as they are, I am the worst.  I am pure evil.  At least in the song I am.  I think a part of me felt like I was more likely to be attacked by villains.  I often felt defenseless, and I would often take meaningless slights very seriously.  Not that anyone else would know it.  By the time I reached high-school my tactic had been to create the facade of someone who can't be fazed by the actions of others.  I pretended to be impervious to harm, but really I just buried the pain deep below.  Of course, it would always come back up in zombie form, and music was a great way to turn anger in hurt into something that wouldn't hurt other people.

Downpour later played this song.  I mean, between this song and "Four in the Morning", you'd think we were a theme band, but actually the name has nothing to do with these songs. At any rate, it was one of our go-to songs from the beginning.  I'm pretty sure we played it at every show, so if you saw us play live, you heard it.  It was one of the songs that I brought to the band already finished that everyone liked.  Most of my other songs got rejected.  They were a tough audience.  I first tried recording it my junior year in high school, with a synth-string background, and a lead acoustic on top with a storm in the background (obviously had to wait for a storm).  I know, the synth strings sound very 80s, but to me they sounded like Dire Straits- the coolest 80s band at that time.

I kept the song briefly in my next band, Blue Fuse, and then the song went into hiding for a while. I resurrected it years later in a log cabin in St. Matthews.  It was just me and a four-track.  And then the song disappeared again until now. While there is a distorted electric guitar, the song wouldn't have fit on this album if I had recorded it the way Downpour would have played it.  We definitely wouldn't have had backing vocals, which is crazy because Bill Greene is a phenomenal singer.

Some are creepers,

Some are leapers,

Some are people sleeping in their mind,

Some are changers,

Most are strangers,

Chained in pain- I've met all kinds,

But me, I'm not like all the rest,

I won't say that I'm the best,

But one like me, I know you’ll never find

I am the storm,

I am the storm,

Watch out here I come,

I am the storm,

Ready to swarm,

There'll be nothing left when I'm done.

He's a swinger,

She's a stinger,

See the fling a thing of such misuse,

Now the dawn,

Has come and gone,

I hear the song of wrong and much abuse,

I am the storm,

I am the storm,

Things won't be the same,

I am the storm,

I am the storm,

The bringer of the blue eternal flame

He's the scorcher she's the torture,

They'll try to thwart you if there's anyway,

He's the gamer, 

She's the tamer,

They kill and main with no thought of yesterday,

I am the storm,

I am the hurricane,

I know when you've been bad,

I am the storm,

I am the torment,

I'm all the nightmares that you've ever had,

I am the storm,

I am the storm ,

I am the firelight,

I am the storm,

I am the storm,

It's time to say goodnight.

To Be Free: Song To You

So if, "Come On" was the beginning of the mini-rock opera, this was the closer.  This was also the only song that Dan Patterson ever played outside of Undulata.  Somewhere there is a recording of Dan and I playing this with our first attempt at a band- The Confused (a rare instance in truth in advertising). In the earliest recording, I played the lead guitar in the recording (albeit, with less finesse).

 If you listen closely, you can really hear the campfire on this one.  The song was our good night song for the rest of the summer.  I resurrected the song years later when I became a father.  It's a nice lullaby.  It's fitting that it ends the album.

                          Song to You

This is my song to you,

This is what I'll do for you,

I hope you like it when it's through.

Some people call it a sad song,

But don't get me wrong,

Just close your eyes and it won't be long.

This is your song from me,

I've tried my best to set you free,

Now you must be what you are going to be.

The stars are moving rapidly,

You are you and I am me,

I hope that you have learned to see.

To Be Free: Come On

Come On

Okay, so "Come On" was another song written with Dan Patterson at Undulata.  Dan and I played guitar, and we played many nights at Vespers.  The kids loved it.  We tried to play songs that kids would like, and we would like.  Donovon's "Mellow Yellow" is a perfect example.  Dylan would not fly in this environment.  At any rate, from week to week, different counselors would host different Vespers.  One week Dan and I were supposed to host Thursday night Vespers, and we were supposed to do something special.  We decided to write a mini-rock opera.  I mean, after you've written a dozen or so songs, you're ready, right?

The songs weren't really part of a theme or anything, but they were originally intended to go together.  This is the song that opens up the whole thing.  We wrote it pretty quickly.  I think we thought we might add a bridge at some point, but I think the statute of limitations has expired on that. There was another song called "The Meaning of Life," and Dan and I were very excited about it, but it failed miserably.  Maybe a little too ambitious.  We tried to play this with Downpour, but they were very picky about what songs to play.

To Be Free: Four in the Morning

Four in the Morning

Dan Patterson and I began writing a lot of songs together.  We began one summer at Camp Undulata. We usually had time in the morning to create, while the campers were with the counselors who taught them how to ride.  This was one of the first songs.  I don't really remember.  I know that I was inspired by having written a letter to a girl that I had a crush on before the summer.  She finally wrote back, and it wasn't reciprocal.  Still, instead of being crushed, I was strangely happy. I had been so nervous, and scared, and the worst had happened, and the world hadn't ended.

At any rate, Dan and I sat in a Cabin and we began to turn the chords into a song.  I think the rain idea was influenced by the fact that in the cabin protected only from the elements by screens, you could literally feel the rain.  So if you were sad, and it was raining, you felt the rain and the sadness as one.

This song really has a rich history, because Dan and I played it with John Weiss when at showcase for my junior year.  By that point we were in a band (Downpour, see above).  I think this is what the song might have sounded like if we'd practiced more than once a week for an hour and a half.  In addition to not practicing, we didn't always agree on the direction of the band.  This was the song that kind of started our band.  See, Dan and I recorded us playing this song, and played it for John, and he really liked it, which was a bit peculiar, because John was into hardcore.

While there's nothing particularly brilliant about this song, there's something about it that resonates decades later.  I don't think it's nostalgia, but that may play a part.  The first time I rediscovered the song was when I was living with my band Satori.  It had been a challenging year.  I was living in a log cabin addition with no heat.  I remember sleeping with a wool cap on my head.  My relationship with my girlfriend at the time was tumultuous, and I had discovered that the other guys in the band were going back to school, and no one had bothered to tell me.

Well, I had a four track, and I began recording a bunch of songs, and this ended up being one of them.  Something about the rediscovery brought me back to that point when I was 15.  The song always finds me in moments, where I need to move from a sad place to a happy place.  It found me again this Summer as I rediscovered it.  Something about the last chorus lifts me out of the rain.  I hope it brings as much joy to you as it has to me.

Four In the Morning (C) by Dewey Kincade and Dan Patterson

It's four o'clock in the morning,

As the rain falls down,

I can see it gently falling,

As I look across the town,

The rain is gently tapping,

Against my window pain,

I can here her quietly calling,

Calling out my name

Rain on me,

Let the rain fall on me,

Rain on me,

Let the rain fall on me.

My mind begins to meander,

On days gone by,

Laying upon my bed,

No strength to even try,

I wonder why I failed,

To make the right choice,

It pains me to think,

Of the sound of her voice

Rain on me,

Let the rain fall on me,

Rain on me,

Let the rain fall on me.

The rain is waning and the clouds begin to lift,

My thoughts of yesterday,

Begin to drift,

As I look outside my window,

The clouds are gone,

The sun beckons me,

To search on

Shine on me,

Let the sun shine on me,

Shine on me,

Let the sun shine on me.

To Be Free: Same Old Thing

Up until this point in my songwriting career, all my songs had one thing in common: they were all very serious.  When I sat down to write me a song, I tended to be serious about it.  And yet, I wasn't all that serious as a person.  "Same Old Thing" was when I decided to change that. I started with a melody, and the melody sounded fun. So the lyrics were fun.  This was my idea of a pop song satire.

If I hadn't already, I think I had just turned 15 when I wrote this.  It was later that summer that I began playing the song over and over, that I thought something like, "Hey, this is the single."  Well, as the years passed, I kind of forgot about this song.  I honestly don't know how I unearthed it, but I remember recording it and thinking it should be included, and then the more I worked on it, the more I had fun with it.  And now I agree with my 15 year old self: this should be the single.  Listen to it twice in a row and see if I'm not wright about that.

I'm sitting in the same old place
Starin' at my TV set
Lookin' at the same old face
And baby you can bet
It's the same old thing
Like it was from the start
Some say it is different
But I can't tell 'em apart.

Starin' out my window at a bird
He's been singin' the same old song
And even if it is absurd
I begin to sing along
It's the same old thing
Anyway you look
That's the same old criminal
Writing the same old book.

A man in his car has had enough
He takes his gun and begins to shoot away
And even though the penalty is too rough
I've driven that freeway every day
And it's the same old thing
Any way you go
You're trying to get somewhere
but traffic's movin' way too slow.

Starin' out into outer space
Lookin' as far as the eye can see
There appears a familiar face
It looks an awful lot like me
It's the same old thing
The universe around
The same state the same city
And the same home town

It's the same old chorus
that we sang before
And since we like it so much
We're gonna sing it some more.

To Be Free: With the Wind

            I'm going to tell you a few things about this song.  The first is about the writing, and the second is about the recording. Here's the version on Spotify.

The Writing

            Freshman year in high-school was an opportunity to remake myself.  I remember the weekend before school started I had finally succumbed to Bob Dylan.  It was the song "Tangled Up in Blue" and though I had no idea what Dylan was doing I finally learned to take it in.  My brother had been listening to Dylan for a couple of years and I thought he was the funniest sounding thing I had ever heard.  It was a far cry from the perfect harmonies of Simon & Garfunkel.  But succumb, I did and a mix tape that I had made became the soundtrack to my first day of high-school.

Nobody really knew me and I could decide who it was that they would see.  And I took full advantage of this.  I had the advantage of nothing to lose.  I also started classes at an after-school theatre company called Walden Theatre. It was here that I met many of my life-long friends.  Walden put on about four productions a year and held classes for movement, improvisation and playwriting.  My brother and sister had both participated in this program and I was always jealous. 

            My involvement in this program started gradually.  For the first half of my freshman year I only participated on weekends.  This left me free during the week and so I spent a lot of time practicing piano and guitar as well as writing songs.  Having written "To Be Free", I knew that I had the ability to write a good song, but to tell you the truth, I wasn't exactly sure how I did it.  So there was a lot of trial and error.  I would like to think that every song I wrote has some spark of interest in it, I would only venture forth with a precious few.  

            I also was writing stories, poems and I was working on a full-length play.  In retrospect, I see that what I was doing was learning how to write by making every mistake very quickly, but I am glad I did not see it as that at the time, because I know that I would only have been discouraged.  I wanted to believe that everything that I was writing was brilliant.

            I had a very close friend named Dan, whom I had known since I was four and whom I used to pal around with all the time growing up.  He had moved away but was still living in Louisville, but because we were too young to do anything about it, we didn't see each other.  Well, he went to Ballard High with me and we became friends again.  That Christmas, his parents gave him a guitar and he was playing the rudiments quite comfortably by the end of the year. He had soul and the fact that he was such a good friend made playing music that much better. Plus, I got him into Dylan.

            Bob Dylan was a revelation to me.  Like the Monkees, listening to Bob Dylan felt like a secret no one else knew about.  I dressed up as Dylan for Spirit Week.  The more I listened to his music, the more I was in awe. I had written some good songs, I thought, but nothing like Bob Dylan.  How did he do it? Getting two lines to rhyme seemed impossible at times, and Dylan would tell impressionistic stories while weaving words together in all sorts of unusual ways.  

            By the Spring of my freshman year, I had written a long epic poem called, “The Road.”  I showed it to my friend Dan, and he was very impressed.  He liked my songs, and I remember trying to teach him “What we Both Know,” but he had never seemed all that impressed with any of my songs.  I had played them for Eric, and I had gotten a similar reaction. But Dan liked my epic poem, and I showed it to some other kids, and they liked it too. It made me feel like I could be a writer.

            That Spring break, I visited my brother and my sister at Yale.  It had made a real impression on me.  There was something about New England that made an impression on me. Perhaps it was the line in “Tangle Up in Blue” where Dylan sings about heading to the east coast that made me think that this was a place that I belonged.  There was something transformational about the area for me.   

            One day, I was in rehearsals for Much Ado About Nothing.I was talking to my friend Gabe (a fellow actor), and we talked about writing a song together. It was a very creative place. In the play, I was a musician, and so I got to bring my guitar to rehearsals all the time.  I remember trying to write a song that began, “I’m a traveling man, that’s what they call me/I don’t stay in one place, but I stay happy.”  My friend Amy got a good chuckle out of that line.  Probably because I didn’t really fit the persona I was trying to create.  I was trying to find another line to the song, but I couldn’t find one.  Probably because it sucked, but I didn’t know that yet.  I started talking to Gabe about a good story for a song, and we came up with the idea of a guy who falls in love with a girl who kills herself. 

I said I would start the song, and he could finish it, but I ended up writing the whole song in about an hour when I got home that night.  When I saw him next he didn’t seem to mind.  Here’s what I wrote:

Oh, what a summer,

Oh, what a season of wonder,

Saw the light felt the thunder,

Oh, just like the wind.

We all drove to New England

The way up we were all singin'

Road down my ears were just ringin'

Things change with the wind.

When I saw her face my heart stood still

She said that her life had been unfulfilled

And that every flower made will always be killed

Seasons change and move with the wind.

You can run so far and run so fast

You can do what you want but it won't ever last

You run from yourself and you run from the past

But you know things change with the wind.

She asked me what was the point of it all

"We were made to stand up only to fall,"

I said, "You've got to teach yourself to stand tall,"

You gotta teach yourself to stand with the wind.

The next part was just like a dream

I don’t remember much, I remember the scream

She told me that things they aren't what they seem

The illusions fade with the wind.

Oh, what a summer, 

Oh, what a season of wonder

Saw the light felt the thunder

Oh, with the wind

The wind dies down and the wind grows strong

She knew just what she was doing all along

Her voice sounds out like the song

The times will change with the wind.

            Unlike the other songs that I had been struggling with throughout this period, this one came easily.  I wrote it in one sitting.  I could pick out details and say where they came from.  For example, when I was talking about New England, I was picturing New Haven where my sister and brother where in school. And the woman in the song has a tragic quality that I associated with this girl at Walden.  But  I wasn't really trying to make any kind of statement or anything.  I know that it was heavily influenced by Dylan. Unlike most pop songs it has a folk structure.   

The Recording

When I started playing this song in front of other people, it was as close as I could get to a "hit".  People really liked the song, which was really weird, because it's not a pop-song, and wasn't intended to be.  When I finally got around to recording it (13 years after I wrote it), I recorded it for Lost and Found. That's a great album, and you can find it on Spotify, iTunes, etc.  Check it out. We went over every song on that album with a fine-toothed comb.

For a while I thought about putting out that same version on this album.  But I couldn't do it.  I wasn't ready to recycle material for a new album.  This is not a greatest hits, or anything where you expect to hear the same material.  So I decided to re-record it.  At first, it was just going to be me and my acoustic guitar, but I love to tinker in the studio.  Hopefully it's not overdone.  That was not the intention.  The intention was to make a camp-fire version of the song.  Enjoy!