What is the Meaning of all this noise, anyways?

Epic Hello, the sophomore release from Bandit Kings, was recently reviewed by The Noise, a music magazine that has been taking the pulse of Boston for decades. T-Max, the founder, editor, and mastermind of The Noise reviewed it himself, which made us blush. He said, of my contribution to the album,

“Find” is a melodic standout that I swore was titled “On a Friday.”

T, good sir, I honestly believe you can & should title the song as you best see fit. I personally love coming up with my own names for things. It's a very Human trait. I truly appreciate your listening, thinking and writing about the song.

My friend Steve thought the very same song was about the Bayou, and is translating the lyrics to French, which is very flattering, in a strange way.

*****

The party favors at our wedding were CDs of original music. Our young niece & nephew learned one of our songs and performed it with soulful precision, which caused so much joy to flood into my heart & soul that my chest literally ached. Their folks asked me what the song was about.

but the best story about that particular song isn't what the song is about...

The interesting point is that I wrote the chords, first verse & chorus, didn't "feel" it, eventually burying it in a folder, in a drawer. My sweet Old Lady stumbled across the lead sheet, composed lyrics for a second & third verse, didn't "feel" them, and buried it back into the same folder, in the same drawer. Months later I stumbled across what I expected to be an incomplete song but was actually a very complete and lovely Song.

So there are already Three different moments involved in the creation of the song. The moment we recorded the demo version was also equally important, as was the wedding day where they received and listened to the CD.

And all five of those moments are independent of when young Samantha decided to transcribe the song and teach it to her family.

I like the idea that 10 people can look at a painting or sculpture, some physical artwork, and take away 10 different meanings, 10 different reasons or stories of what that art is about, or why it even exists. I want my music to be the same. It doesn't matter what I was thinking when I wrote the song, more important is the feelings, thoughts, stories it creates in your head at the moment you listen to it.

At least that's what I told them, to deflect the fact that song is about substance abuse. Or was when I wrote it. I'm now enjoying the idea that the meaning has become bigger than that, and will not likely ever mean that again.

When we perform this song now, I don't think of a rainy festival & stinky hippies, I think about sweet children, singing at the piano.