Kevin Cassell
Music/Lyrics/Piano/Vocals
Mark Oates
Executive Producer/Trumpet/Euphonium
Rick Destefano
Producer ("Faded Valentine") Keyboards ("These Times")
Michael Shorr
Producer/Guitar/Sound Design ("War Game")
Linda Knief
Vocals ("This is My World" and "Faded Valentine")
Grace
Vocals ("Channel Rapture")
Negwes White
Vocals ("Uncuffed at Last")
Ejypt Clough
Vocals ("Uncuffed at Last")

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Rapture Channel

I wrote this song after seeing a televangelist on late night television. The guy preached doom-and-gloom and didn't once mention Jesus. He stared directly into the camera the whole time, as if he were trying to peer into the souls of those of us watching him. Throughout his entire sermon, an 800 number glowed on the lower section of the screen and off to his side, sitting at tables, were a number of people answering phones from people calling in with pledges of financial support for his ministry. "We need to save souls before the Second Coming!" he kept saying. "We accept Visa, Mastercard, and American Express!"

Faded Valentine

I began writing this song while living in a hot third-floor apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one sweltering summer. It is loosely based on a woman I had worked with the previous year. She was unmarried and, in her opinion, "past her prime," but at the same time she hadn't given up her search for love. The only problem was that she clung to romantic myths she had grown up with, and these myths, in my opinion, prevented her from finding the happiness she wanted so badly. The song was only half-done when I put it away and forgot about it. In 2005, when I began thinking about making a CD, I pulled out the paper with my lyrics and chords and finished it up. Linda Knief, of Taos, New Mexico, sings the chorus beautifully.

Uncuffed At Last

The chord progression for this song, as you will hear upon listening to it, is based on Pachelbel's Canon. It is a "happy" song! I wrote it right after I dropped out of a Ph.D program, which was causing me immense stress and self-doubt (now gone forever), and signed up for the Peace Corps. The "you" of this song is not anyone in particular, although I suppose it could have been me had I stayed on course and become a full-fledged, tenure-track college professor. I did have a vial of mace once, but never a key-ring happy face.

War Game

Like "Rapture Channel," the persona of this song is not me! I am not a war-monger. I did write the song, however, as the Bush Administration was preparing its invasion of Iraq. So is it an anti-war song? A pro-war song? It's neither. The persona of the song is one of these guys (they are always guys) who plays war-simulated video games in which the enemy pops out from around a corner, turns to shoot but--bam!--is shot instead, falls and squirms on the ground, and burns alive on the spot ("turn for me, squirm for me, burn for me"). If you've ever played this kind of video game you know how addictive it can be, and how it links war-imagery with sheer primal aggression--something I saw the American television media do during the invasion.

Dark Hour

I guess I was pretty depressed when I wrote this song! Even though it's sad, I like it. When we're kids we're sheltered from the pain and suffering of this world, but it's a whole new story when we become adults!

This Is My World

This is my first song. It's very sentimental, I know. It's also too high for me to sing, so I asked Linda Knief to sing it instead. I wrote it at my grandparents' house in the late 1980s. They were always trying to get me to move to their town and be near them. They wanted me to graduate from college, get a job at either the University of New Hampshire or the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (later my grandmother would suggest Walmart), and just settled down in a house and live there for the rest of my life. But I had no interest in settling down, something they couldn't understand for the longest time.

You Like That, Huh?

Some people think this song is about a single person, but it's not. First of all, the song is an attempt by me (in the early 1990s) to outdo Billy Joel's "Big Shot." In recently revising it, I threw in a little of Radiohead's "Creep," a little "Fatal Attraction," a character from the soap "Guiding Light," and someone who employed emotional tactics to maintain a position of power over others--only to have it backfire in the end. This latter person was a real headcase and a source of much visceral contempt. Those who know "the situation" like this song a lot; those who don't know about it will think I'm a real wacko!

These Times

I wrote this about a friend of mine who was going through a rough period a few years ago. At the time he was in a relationship with a woman that was on the rocks. Although they deeply cared about each other, the "little things" always got in the way--and they eventually broke up. He also carried a lot of baggage around from his childhood. His father had tried to bring him up to be an "All-American" boy and failed utterly. They hadn't talked or seen each other for years and kept in touch only through my friend's sister. At the time the song was composed, my friend's father was in failing health and not expected to live much longer. My friend said he'd go to the funeral, but didn't want to see his father before then because "all we'd do is fight." While the song is sad, there is a happy ending: my friend did see his father and they got along well, and the man is living as I write this (the sister apparently exaggerated the illness). This friend once said to me, about his problems (he had many): "I feel like I'm in a burning building." That's where I got the September 11 image from.

Questions

I wrote this song while living in Caracas, Venezuela, in 2002 while a military coup, followed by a revolution, followed by a counter-coup was engulfing the country. The "you" sounds like someone I knew personally, but in fact a lot of the lyrics ("now the battle lines are drawn / people know who's right and wrong / and they're marching to this song") are more about the political upheaval of that time than any one person in particular.

Goodbye Friend of Mine

This is a swan song for the good old days, before the Republicans took over and ruined the country. Enough said.