John Dandrea

This song was written on the heels of  Rainbow Castle and The Muse Is Sleeping.  The lyrics came about from a discussion with my friend after he experienced a major disillusionment over a work situation.   Technical:  this song used multiple time signature changes and shifts between guitar fingerpicking and strumming parts, delaying completion of recording.   Credits - guitar: Ian Blain
vocals: Abigail Strickland
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This is one of my favorites.   I love the imagery and vivid memories of a moment frozen in time.  The blue of the dawn, a lady in white who believed she was better off alone... the stuff that any good song ballad is made of, and every word was true.   Technical:  Emily did a beautiful job on the vocal chorus and harmony parts.  The song is a basic ballad of drum kit, guitar, strings, and bass, I kept it simple.  This song occupies a very special place in my heart. 
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Credits: backing vocals: Emily E. Herring
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This is one of several songs during this time period that started out as poems.  I was not planning to make them into songs, but I found myself  hearing a melody and singing the lyrics so... I simply played the songs on acoustic guitar with the melody that I heard.  This song and several others including "Eyes" on album #3, were written back to back and it was fun hearing these reach completion.  
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Military life is full of special hardships, and perhaps none greater than the feeling of being too far from home and from loved ones.   Overseas assignments are especially difficult, because it's often not feasible to get sufficient time off to fly such distance let alone be able to afford the cost of such travel.   This song is about that feeling - of being  just "too far away" from all the things that seem to matter the most. 
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This is a happy-to-sing kind of song, with an easy melody and guitar chords.  It expresses the joy of just being out in a park walking hand in hand with that special someone in your life. It was a perfect day of  being thankful for a wonderful companionship.  As time goes by we often look back at such "perfect moments", and long for that feeling again. 

Vocals: Abigail Strickland
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Rocks in the Road - Steve had written these lyrics, and I was on the bus one day going to work and I suddenly started hearing the melody in my mind, complete with the harmony and chorus part.    This became one of the songs we played together very often on our 12-string guitars, and it was very popular among our circle of friends.    
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Credits: lyrics: Steve Kuryla
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This song is dedicated to the one-and-only Barbara Eden, everyone's beloved Genie!  This was the perfect song for me to create to add to this "magical"  collection of songs - and I was very pleased with how it turned out. Abigail sings the essential vocal parts that add a true duet style to the song, just as I had imagined it.  It  remains one of  my all-time favorites,  and I think it'll be as timeless as the lovely Genie who inspired it.
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 Backing vocals: Abigail Strickland
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This song was written in 1980 when I was still serving in the military overseas.  The contrast was how strange it felt to visit the US after 3 years and  I had lost the frame of reference, feeling like we had nothing in common anymore, nothing to relate to.  Looking back, there was a sharp contrast in the ways that we socialized in the military - living and working together in a tight unit structure.  This song was an expression of  how odd it felt to visit  "back home". 
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