macko814
04-30-2003, 07:37 PM
Interesting! From http://www.performingsongwriter.com/pages/web_ex/06901.cfm
More Song Explanations:
Edge of Seventeen
It was written right after John Lennon died. A week later, my uncle died and this was a very close uncle. Between John Lennon and my Uncle Bill, “Edge of Seventeen” came out of that. [sings] “Oh I went searchin’ for an answer / Up the stairs and down the hall / Not to find an answer just to hear the call of a nightbird singing.” And the nightbird is the bird of death, really. I can get up on stage and sing “Edge of Seventeen” and still feel just as traumatized today as I did then, when I first sang it at my piano. It’s just so heavy. I use that word “heavy” a lot, and I know that it’s an old hippie word, but it just really seems to be the right word. Some of the songs are so heavy. John Lennon being shot to death in front of his apartment for absolutely no reason, when I was a rock star also, so immediately that transfers to, ‘Is somebody going to shoot me? Is somebody going to shoot me because I didn’t write back to a fan?’ And that’s why I wrote the song.
Say You Will
Everybody’s experienced it - when you like somebody, it makes you a different person. It changes you and it changes you in a minute. But that song is not just about Lindsey. It’s about a movie I saw about Arturo Sandoval, the trumpet player. I loved this movie, and I just loved the way that through all the pain and separation, they managed to do music and stay happy and keep love alive, and dancing and rhythm and music, how healing it was. That was really my inspiration for that song. The chorus was written first, then I went back to write the verses. It was initially inspired by that movie. But then once you get part of the poem down, you can’t always write all of it about what inspired it initially. You have to go back. You have this great chorus that basically says, “If you dance with me, you won’t be mad at me anymore. We can be in a huge argument, but if we put on some music and start to dance, everything will be great.” Then I had to think about what to make the verses about. So I went back over all my relationships with people and think of different ways that I have felt when I wanted basically to burst into song and sing that chorus (laughs). Give me one more chance. That’s what came out of it. It’s funny because, we just did an interview the day before yesterday, and I don’t think any of the band knows that that was the reason I wrote the song.
Running Through The Garden
I wrote that song around 1985. It’s about the story “Rapaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. We didn’t realize it until it was completely recorded. I thought it was a Twilight Zone episode I’d seen on TV fifteen or twenty years ago. But it’s the story of this girl who’s raised in this beautiful Italian villa and her dad is this gardener and he raised all these poisonous plants and he like infused the poisons into her. It’s very hazy what I remember about the story. She became poisonous, so if anybody were to kiss her, they would die. And she could never leave, because she’s addicted to the poison. So everybody’s like, ‘Wow, that’s an incredible story.’ There’s a picture that Christine did, a drawing, and Chris is an incredible artist, probably twenty years ago, and she gave it to me, and it’s her, it’s the girl in the song. So I went back and forth about maybe calling it “Rapaccini’s Daughter,” but I thought I’d have to get publishing rights and all that, so I left it “Running Through The Garden.”
More Song Explanations:
Edge of Seventeen
It was written right after John Lennon died. A week later, my uncle died and this was a very close uncle. Between John Lennon and my Uncle Bill, “Edge of Seventeen” came out of that. [sings] “Oh I went searchin’ for an answer / Up the stairs and down the hall / Not to find an answer just to hear the call of a nightbird singing.” And the nightbird is the bird of death, really. I can get up on stage and sing “Edge of Seventeen” and still feel just as traumatized today as I did then, when I first sang it at my piano. It’s just so heavy. I use that word “heavy” a lot, and I know that it’s an old hippie word, but it just really seems to be the right word. Some of the songs are so heavy. John Lennon being shot to death in front of his apartment for absolutely no reason, when I was a rock star also, so immediately that transfers to, ‘Is somebody going to shoot me? Is somebody going to shoot me because I didn’t write back to a fan?’ And that’s why I wrote the song.
Say You Will
Everybody’s experienced it - when you like somebody, it makes you a different person. It changes you and it changes you in a minute. But that song is not just about Lindsey. It’s about a movie I saw about Arturo Sandoval, the trumpet player. I loved this movie, and I just loved the way that through all the pain and separation, they managed to do music and stay happy and keep love alive, and dancing and rhythm and music, how healing it was. That was really my inspiration for that song. The chorus was written first, then I went back to write the verses. It was initially inspired by that movie. But then once you get part of the poem down, you can’t always write all of it about what inspired it initially. You have to go back. You have this great chorus that basically says, “If you dance with me, you won’t be mad at me anymore. We can be in a huge argument, but if we put on some music and start to dance, everything will be great.” Then I had to think about what to make the verses about. So I went back over all my relationships with people and think of different ways that I have felt when I wanted basically to burst into song and sing that chorus (laughs). Give me one more chance. That’s what came out of it. It’s funny because, we just did an interview the day before yesterday, and I don’t think any of the band knows that that was the reason I wrote the song.
Running Through The Garden
I wrote that song around 1985. It’s about the story “Rapaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. We didn’t realize it until it was completely recorded. I thought it was a Twilight Zone episode I’d seen on TV fifteen or twenty years ago. But it’s the story of this girl who’s raised in this beautiful Italian villa and her dad is this gardener and he raised all these poisonous plants and he like infused the poisons into her. It’s very hazy what I remember about the story. She became poisonous, so if anybody were to kiss her, they would die. And she could never leave, because she’s addicted to the poison. So everybody’s like, ‘Wow, that’s an incredible story.’ There’s a picture that Christine did, a drawing, and Chris is an incredible artist, probably twenty years ago, and she gave it to me, and it’s her, it’s the girl in the song. So I went back and forth about maybe calling it “Rapaccini’s Daughter,” but I thought I’d have to get publishing rights and all that, so I left it “Running Through The Garden.”