1. Clear Day
2. Nothing in the Dark That's Not There in the Light
3. The Invasion
4. My Soul Wants to Move South
5. The Taker
6. The Rogue's Adventure in Dreamland
7. I Was Back in School Again
8. Water From the Moon
All songs written, performed and recorded by GS. Recorded 12/86- 4/87 at Phantom Airship 1, North Hollywood.
Instruments used: electric and acoustic guitars, bass, electric and acoustic percussion, electric and acoustic vocals, electric keyboards, soprano and baritone recorders, effects.
Most of these songs were based on dreams, and I wanted the music to reflect that. In imagining what I should shoot for before recording started, I thought of what to some might seem 3 very incongruous influences: the Syd Barrett solo records, the Bee Gees "First" and "Horizontal" albums, and the third Peter Gabriel record. All of them seemed to me to have a kind of quiet, weird, haunted quality, and that's what I wanted for this; unexpected access to some private world.
The end result is often a lot more dark-edged and sinister than these influences, with the possible exception of Gabriel, might at first suggest.
It's my opinion that the lyrics here take a quantum leap forward over previous efforts. Something must have clicked because I found my voice as a writer- I was no longer swimming in my influences and experimenting with popular styles. The first song here with lyrics, "Nothing in the Dark", is the most straight ahead. After that it's a whole 'nuther ball game.
Recorded 12/86 - 4/87; some lyrics go as far back as '85. (The oldest one of them is the title track. Confused Celine Dion fans please take note. This is not a cover tune.)
Click on any underlined song to read the lyrics and/or see the instrumentation.
Nothing In The Dark That's Not There In The Light
Time to wake up and see what's around
Time to learn without a sound
Time to understand without second sight
Nothing in the dark that's not there in the light
Don't criticize me, you can't understand
What looking at life can do to a man
Don't try to deny or claim perfection
There's problems with us that surpass detection
Can't you understand, it's still all right
Nothing in the dark that's not there in the light
There's something to learn in every disease
I'll take my knowledge and do as I please
See the blood on the hands of those angels in white
Nothing in the dark that's not there in the light
G.S., 2/19/87
THE INVASION
Young boy and grandfather walking in the street
Crowded summertime city street
Toughs walking down the street
Strutting their stuff
Tension in the street
The toughs pass, it's just another day
But the tensions is high
The invasion is here
Someone walking with us
A man I have seen before and think I know (my father?)
There is a splash and screaming metal
as his guts hit the ground
For a moment he stands with half a body
Then he falls back
and his head breaks the glass of a store window
Blood runs to the black velvet display case
and pools around his head
Staring up with lifeless eyes,
Haloed with broken glass and blood on tan tile
Things move fast and my grandfather takes me......
We are up in an apartment, hiding
Once I think there was more here
Things of comfort before the fear
Claimed lives and property gone
Don't know who will survive but the end looks near
"These are bad days" says the old man to the boy
Who rises and looks out the second story window
to suburbia below
He can remember how it used to be
Change came suddenly, inexplicably
The streets are quiet now,
with a few people moving around
Grandfather summons him to sit and starts to explain
"Just close your eyes and put your head in my lap."
Grandfather has a ceremonial knife
The boy knows what will happen now
And with his eyes closed he listens for the sound
Will it be slick like a razor
Or rough like the tearing of cloth?
The throat is cut, a soft wet ripping sound
No different than that of an animal
And the deed is done
The boy rises and looks at the old man's second mouth
The unnatural gash self inflicted
The old man's lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling.
Now he was alone.
G.S., 12/86
THE TAKER
I walk the streets alone at night
Beneath the silent neon lights
There is no order
Chaos rules
And violence reigns supreme
My conscience left me long ago
I don't care
And I don't know just where it's gone
I'm happy now
There's nothing in my way
I live to take your life tonight
I'd love to take your life tonight
As screams and terror fills your heart
Your death makes me a star
Now I'm on the nightly news
With your blood I've paid my dues
Your innocence and all your dreams
are buried in the grave
I'm killing you because it's fun
It could be you or anyone
I don't owe the world respect
And this is all I crave
I live to take your life tonight
I'd love to take your life tonight
As screams and terror fill your heart
Your death makes me a star
Now it's time to face the facts
Time to play the final act
This world is a catastrophe and order is a joke
If you live free you live with me
Brush shoulders with insanity
I suffer you to come to me
Or live under the yoke
Take one last look before you fall
You've seen my face in mirrored halls
To you the world is made of glass
To me it's made of stone
G.S., 4/87
THE ROGUE'S ADVENTURES IN DREAMLAND (EXCERPT)
It was rush hour in the night club cafeteria
High atop the social tower
High above a thousand glittering impersonal lights
In the towering club
The elite danced the night away
To the pulse of the latest rage
Blood red was the light
It was a few hours before dawn
And night was not yet gone
When the chase began
As an emissary of the Dragon force
A policeman-assassin of sorts
Was pursuing The Interloper
He who was not of the club
The rogue of many faces
He who owes no allegiance
And schemes only to escape
And serve himself
The night was full of dying possibilities
Full of changing air and excitement
Full of life, however dangerous and foul
The force of life crackled like static in the wind
The rogue pushed through the unseeing mass
Drugging themselves on the red-lit dance floor
Shoving the unaware aside
in his attempt to escape the law
The oriental agent followed, doing the same
Until the rogue pushed through at last
To the brightly lit hallway
Where the elevators led to offices,
The street,
New adventures,
Freedom
But his pursuer was right behind
Dragon man could not cuff the rogue
But was pushed off balance
The elevator was called
And as the rogue disappeared towards freedom inside it
The agent assassin laughed in desperate triumph
"I've tricked you", he called as the doors shut:
"That elevator is going down!"
But as the doors shut and the elevator roared up
Throwing him to the floor
He knew he had won anyway.
On the ground above
A strange sight awaited him
Naked, sprawled on the floor
Wall to wall on brightly colored bean bags
The elderly corpses lay sprawled in a naked orgy
Groping without motion
The fresh dead had been positioned obscenely
In a last fling at wild passion
He picked his way through gingerly
Hoping to avoid stepping on anyone
In his head he heard their voices
And became convinced
they would feel pain if stepped upon
He had no wish to anger them
Though they seemed dead
Their social grope was important
They must go undisturbed
As it was the easiest way
to avoid arguments and confrontations
And he passed through the glass doors
to the condo project beyond
It was almost dawn but people treated it as dusk
Perhaps to some there was no difference
He roamed the empty facades
Conscious of the presence of the force of life
In so much empty space
The people were all in
But there was more life because of it
The way the empty night feels alive
to those weary of their kind
Ahead in an upstairs window a light shined
In a typical middle class bedroom
Of a typical middle class girl
Some businessman's daughter
Just waiting for sex
Ready to fuck and suck for the sake of rebellion
Ready to try anything once
Ripe for perversion
A fellow searcher for the force of life
She snuck back in her room with her friend
Less attractive and somewhat more cynical than she
Perhaps they both were looking for a good time
Young girls often liked to play games
He climbed up to her window
Scaling the rustic facade into teenage suburbia
The Interloper once again
They did not seem surprised
They did not want to fuck
He had to get somewhere and he needed directions
From up here he could see better
They took him to the window and pointed
It was a club on the street shrouded in mist
from the damp morning
In the gray light it looked like a chateau
And he knew it was a chance, a battle in the war
Perhaps tonight he'd win
And as he stared from her window
He grew excited
Sensing that victory could be near
Get ready for another adventure
Get ready for another fight
Tonight.......
G.S., '86
I WAS BACK IN SCHOOL AGAIN
I was back in school again
Getting ready to graduate
It wasn't my school
But if it was
I probably wouldn't go back
(It never is)
But very often if not always I feel I have returned home
To people I never knew who are my close friends
To girls who I really did use to know
Who didn't like me then
But want the chance to know me all over again
Friends and community
Always there in the back of my mind
And on waking I find
I am saddened that only in dreams
were these things truly real for me.
And every year around June
When it's time for some new class to graduate
I dream and I leave once again
Or I'm just back
Back with friends more real than those I left behind
Back in times more fun than the truth
What was the truth?
Moments out of time, we were as one
But imprisoned, unity was in cynicism
If the authorities didn't hound us,
we often hounded each other
It was no paradise
Even if I could go back, there's not much left behind
Just dreams of what we could have been
Had we not been so blind
I was back in school again
It was graduation day
Father was speaking on the phone, so many miles away
And as he spoke, a shower broke
and rain came pouring down
The room turned gray and the light grew dim
and my soul wore a frown
He spoke to me from the land of night,
where I was soon to go
To plunge full time into the night
to wrap my dreams in snow
He spoke of payments to be made,
appointments to be kept
Smalltimes coming down so hard,
was it he or I who slept?
I comforted him and said,
"Don't worry, for I will join you soon".
Hung up the phone and I walked to the edge
And I looked down through the gloom
There in summer rain so warm
my friends lay on the ground
Drunken by the party, real escape unfound
And the girl I had come so far to reclaim was gone
along with my chances
The day will turn sunny and warm,
a day of pompousness and circumstances
And an audience of previous generations
who wish to share their blight
Goodbyes will be said and the inmates released
To work out their lifetimes in night.
G.S., summer '86
WATER FROM THE MOON
An end to war and hatred,
An end to need and want
A perfect life while living,
No memories that haunt
A span of years with no regrets
Or ways to fill them all
A world of spring and summertime,
An end to winter and fall
A time when all love is returned
And every promise true
A time when old age is a myth
And everyone is new
A time when everyone has food
And no one needs a car
A time when everyone is loved
For what they really are
And the world will change
With words and a tune
Water from the moon.
G.S., '85
All songs written, performed and recorded by GS. Recorded 12/86- 4/87 at Phantom Airship 1, North Hollywood.
Instruments used: electric and acoustic guitars, bass, electric and acoustic percussion, electric and acoustic vocals, electric keyboards, soprano and baritone recorders, effects.
lettering , artwork and original cassette design: GS
photos: Ken Zelinka