About The Songs
A Conversation With Peter Stone Brown & Trev Gibb

"Matter Of The Heart" opens the album with reverb-fueled crashing drums and is a promising start. Did its final recording satisfy the sounds in your mind, is it how you perceived it and are you satisfied with it as an opener?

This was a song that I'd written with a specific sound in mind that was finally achieved on this record. I'd tried it previously with various bands, but it never was what I wanted for some reason. Frank Campbell knew what I was looking for and came up with the guitar riff that is the instrumental hook to the song, and also for whatever reason I came up with the right tempo to do it. So to me the recording was a great success because finally I heard what I was aiming for all along. As to starting the album, that's just how it worked out when I was sequencing the tracks.

Well it's a powerful start with sharp and catchy lyrics and I'd agree the rhythm fits its jumpy mood perfectly. How long before had you written this song and what's its history?

The song was written quite a few years before and it speaks for itself I think. The end of the longest day refers to the longest day of the year when the relationship that the song is about came crashing down in a big way. I don't necessarily like to go into what songs are about specifically, because ultimately it's what it's about to the listener and that may have nothing at all to do with what I wrote it about.

Now after the close of "Matter Of The Heart" a wonderful surprise creeps up on the listener. "You Don't Have To Close The Door" is a five-minute show-stopper. The song is wonderfully written and brilliantly performed and the great guitar playing often takes the song to another level. How do you feel about this song?

Well, this is one song, that when I was writing it, I had a suspicion it was something special, but I honestly wasn't sure until I played it for some people. I played it shortly after I wrote it on a tiny radio station in Philly and the guy doing the show, just flipped out, he couldn't believe it. Later on, when I formed a band, the fan base that we had went pretty crazy over that song and that has kind of continued. I would do a gig, and someone would come up to me in the street or something a few days later and say, "I saw you play, are you the guy who wrote the song about the train?" At the same time as a writer there's still a couple of lines I've been trying to make better since I wrote it.

Well sometimes things are meant to come out as they do and in a way I find one line in particular, devastating. A very sad line, "I could take the train but the train don't leave here anymore." Maybe this line sums up the song, and to me it implies isolation, a barrier of sorts. You can't get out, it don't leave here anymore. You can't move on or escape. The song itself is desperate in its mood, yet for all its desperation is beautiful and it makes me happy to sing it. The song seems bitter. The lines are embittered, painful. Another line that follows the same mood, is "Didn't know I took the chance till I was out of the game." The song seems to imply a feeling of failure and missed opportunity.

Well the song does imply all those things. This was a song that just came tumbling out one night, but again while I thought it might be special I really wasn't sure if it was any good, but it is at least by audience reaction my most popular song. It had to go on the album.

Well a writer nearly always has that self-doubt about a song. How did the song come about?

The song came out of misunderstanding and miscommunication, and the desire to clear up that miscommunication.

But without that, the song would never have materialized. Nonetheless does it bring back memories you'd rather discard or do you feel its part of your life and something you love to sing?

Well obviously it's about something fairly painful, but if there's one song I wrote that anyone should be able to relate to, that's the one. I can't think of it in terms of loving to sing it, it's more like having to sing it.

Do you sometimes find that the passion within for the song you're singing disappears and you have to find a renewed passion or different way of approaching the song? For example in listening to live versions it's never the same. Your singing always gives it a different mood or comes in from a different perspective.

Well you find ways to keep yourself interested, and every once in a while you find a new meaning in a song yourself. It's hard to keep singing the same songs over and over, so you have to give them a rest. But it all depends on a lot of things and mood is a part of it. Sometimes you have to take a second and remember why you wrote something, other times you don't. Also the song doesn't always have to be about what you originally wrote it about, and different meanings tend to appear. This is one of the more important things I've learned from Bob Dylan and Van Morrison or any great song interpreter.

Did "Door" come about lyrically or musically first or both at the same time? Was it an inspired moment or did it take a long time to materialize?

Totally an inspired moment, it all came together at once.

The next song on the album "You're Not There" is pretty direct even before listening. It implies the lack of presence, the lack of support and is a song with much depth in emotion and expression with great musical contribution from Cindy Cashdollar. The song stays pretty much in the same musical space from beginning to end but this is actually the key to its success. Again a song that shows desperation: "Must I prove how much I need you?" This song has a basic blues structure but it retains the love mood of a blues song and yet it is much more.

That is one of my favorite songs actually and one that I never get tired of singing. The way it came about is different than every other song I wrote because I actually wrote it in a bar. I was just going out for the night or so I thought, and I sat down, ordered a beer and it came into my mind. So I took out my pocket notebook and wrote it ignoring everything else going on around me. I finished writing and went back home and got out the guitar.

What sparked off the chain of thoughts?

Well it was about someone special to me who was in my life, was out of my life and came back into my life, but probably wasn't going to stay. And also there I was sitting in this bar alone and this person wasn't there. It was probably something as simple as that.

The line "I see the eyes that only stare" is very interesting as is the line, "Too many people I can see through," which shows your perspective of society or of those around you.

Well, this is one of the things that happens when you write, whatever situation you're in, your perspective or whatever finds its way into it. I mean this song just happened to hit me that night at that time. Luckily I was able to get it, I was there to receive it. The place I was in literally and figuratively at the time played a part I'm sure. I really wasn't thinking about it too much. I was just trying to grab it while I could.

I understand. It's strange how inspiration can come or a line or a melody strikes you, and in that moment it can be recorded or it can be lost.

You probably lose them more than you keep them. Sometimes you're just doing something else and you may think you'll remember it, but then when it's time to remember it, it's gone. You may have the idea, but you've lost the line. It's not something you can think about too much or you'll go crazy. Maybe that should be a song: "Looking for that lost line."

Did you write "You're Not There," a long time ago or was it recent to the album because many of the songs that you've picked are songs that fit a mood?

Well you have to remember the album was recorded quite a while ago, and the song was written before that but again I knew it was a song that had to go on the album. As far as mood, well you try to pick songs that will go together, whether on an album or performing live. At the same time, it's also fun to stick something in that totally shakes it up.

Have you written anything recently?

Not really recently, or more accurately not anything I've kept. I'm always writing. If I'm not writing songs, then I'm writing something else. Songs are special to me. I don't like to force it. If it's not there lyrically or if I don't like the music, then I'll stop. Sometimes you might be looking to write a certain kind of song or be doing something different musically and if it's not happening, I just won't do it.

I agree that it has to be a natural occurrence and sometimes it has to be satisfying, though I'd say you shouldn't always let it dictate because it can often turn into something you like in the end.

Right, but sometimes I just think to myself, this isn't what I want to be writing about. In other words, I like it when the inspiration takes over and has a life of its own, almost as if I'm lost in it. That's when it's best and that applies to playing or performing as well. I think it's what any artist, a writer, a painter, an actor is looking for.

I'd like to address the darkness of the album. It's often very gloomy lyrically and often the songs are toiling in the grim reaper's toolbox for a way out of dying. To me the album in many of its songs has an obsessive nature with death, with fear, with loss and addresses the fact that there is no way back and that the train don't leave anymore. And with all that gloominess the irony comes with the musical side, which is often bright, sparkly and full of sunshine that uplifts the lyrics. It is almost like a battle between opposing moods and emotions, because although you address the gloomy nature of life you also show a response and willingness, of hope and of the human need to transcend and surpass and continue in the most difficult moments of life. For example, you show this hope in lines such as "I made some mistakes, but I have no regrets, I'll take whatever's coming" or "Say yes, open up the sky/Say yes, don't ask why". The willingness to remain open minded and welcoming in the light of these lines is found often in the same songs and successfully counters dark devastating lines such as, "The gun went off, they're kicking' up the dust/I'm running' my final race". Therefore in so many words, what I'm saying is that there are many conflicting ideas and questions put forward in the most gloomy and utterly saddening way, and though you push forward these dark emotions you also bring through the idea of hope and fulfillment by responding musically as well as lyrically. I find this hard to explain but it is forever evident in your songs, and I find it beautiful. Do you understand what I am implying and how do you feel about it?

The songs on the album are dark and they're dark for a legitimate reason. The depression or darkness on the record is not depression for the sake of depression or darkness for the sake of darkness. One reviewer wrote, ".it can't be that bad in Philly," or something silly like that, which of course has nothing to do with anything and shows that reviewer didn't understand the songs. Someone, maybe Bob Dylan said, "The purpose of music is to elevate the spirit," which is why I sing and it's why I write. On one level that's what the blues is about. These songs are my blues, though they aren't necessarily blues in structure. But if you really listen to the blues, that's what it does, it elevates you, the music elevates you. So that's pretty much what I'm trying to do. The emotions may be conflicting. The battle between dark lyrics and what perhaps can be heard as bright music is there because life itself is full of conflicting emotions that happen on a daily basis if not a minute-by-minute basis. This isn't some artistic contrivance for the most part. What I try to do is let the songs come out and that's how they came out. My songs come from real-life situations, but on the other hand I have my own ideas of what makes a good song, so obviously I can't put everything or even most things that happen and shape them into a song (though I might be always trying) because it doesn't necessarily work as a song. At the same time, I am not going to deny that the idea of death runs through many songs on this album. It's there if you choose to hear it that way. In other words the conflict is there because it's not only up against death, at the same time it's up against life. The album is about trying to continue living in the face of death.

There was a critic who put down "Before I Go" and "Up Against It." He said, "Brown's characters run in the shadow of death to find their breath." Well I have a friend who happens to be a Zen Buddhist Priest and he told me that line is a perfect example of Zen thought. What this particular critic didn't understand is I knew very well what I was writing.

I wasn't implying death as being the foremost thing, but it is one of a winding coil of issues that run through the album. The album isn't black and white, but it certainly ain't grey. It's color, it's like the sky in "Say Yes". It opens up and many things come out of it, though each listener hears it from their own perspective. The album as I said before is multi-layered and on many levels, there is more to it than meets the eye.

Well hopefully the album is on many levels, both in the music and in the lyrics. There are many issues that run through the album, which is why I picked the songs I picked.

"Up Against It" the fourth track on the album has a great introduction with testing lyrics. Why it was placed fourth on the album considering the album derived its name from this track? I would've expected it to be the first track.

Ok I called the album that name after the album was sequenced and anyway the record company re-sequenced it. Lots of albums have title songs that aren't first necessarily. That song title just seemed to fit the mood of the album.

One of my favorite lines in "Up Against It" is the line "want each minute to be my best, gotta keep this heart beatin' in my chest". The song conveys the sense of trials and tribulations in life and how you seem constantly up against it, a new challenge, a new pain. But again in this song we see the human instinct of survival, to keep your heart beating, the idea of faith in finding the time to hear the "Church when they bells ring". Therefore to me this song signifies willpower, the will to carry on no matter what. What brought this song into existence? Was it a particular experience or just a thought one day that inspired it?

The willpower to carry on no matter what is what the song is about. What actually triggered the song I don't want to go into, but I was besieged by several very serious things at that time. The song is about what happens when you really do the see the darkness.

So what is your "worst fear"? You were warned but you're face to face with it, confrontation, survival and fear. These are the many things we as humans have to face each day and therefore I find this song endearing in that I and countless others can perfectly relate to it in our own way. When you say that "all the dreams died," are you implying that your ideal views or your perspectives on life were shattered by the shattering reality of the real world, a real world that you also express brilliantly in "Here On Earth"?

All I really wanna say is my worst fear is probably the same worst fear of anyone. All the dreams died means what it says and also what you say. I reached a place where everything was shattered, a place where you realize what is truly important which is the other thing the song is about. This was shattered by the real world, and maybe not so much the world but reality, so in a sense the answer to your question is yes. I want to clarify one thing about "Up Against It". At the time I wrote it, I was in a place where the dreams had died or been shattered, and the song is about going on in the face of that. The thing I learned though is I did go on and the dreams continued.

Ironically the song that follows "Up Against It" is "Here On Earth", a song that in a way traces the same borderlines of opinion and emotion. Often we are up against the many issues you raise in "Here On Earth". This song is a desperate song. It does not pose a question or an opinion, it just lays down the law, the facts and sorrow. Lyrically your technique is clever in that every stanza could be the start of another song, another issue. "Here On Earth" is an epic song and the music perfectly compliments its changing lyrical mood, with a wonderful piano part that seems to flicker like a candle. What inspired the song?

Here on Earth just came out of nowhere. I had no idea I was going to write it. In fact, I had just written a song if I remember correctly. And I was sitting in my living room playing. It was the afternoon. And the line "Here on earth" came to me. I started writing. The song almost wrote itself. I was kind of just the guide, the conduit. It was just this explosion and I was shaping it. I knew after all these lines which basically spelled out one by one various evils and horrors of human existence, I had to find some way of ending it on a hopeful note, which was about all that I had to do with it. Woody Guthrie once said that he hated a song that makes you feel like you're no good or something like that, and I know what he was talking about, so I was conscious of that. Sometimes writing a song is like riding a wild horse on the rodeo. It was my job to stay on the horse until the ride was over.

The next song "Mystery Mountain" is both a change in mood in one way and sustaining the mood in another. The music and the lyrics to me are very much a childlike dreamy song and I find the guitar riff also used on fiddle to be a great highlight. The music is bright but in a way it has a dark and spooky edge to it, "old fool-killer stories" and "the old scissor grinder" as well as "violence of the heart and mind" seems to contradict the music, which comes across very bright and happy. Were you conscious of this when recording the song?

Those three songs were all written around the same time. "Mystery Mountain" was another song that seemingly came out of nowhere. The interesting thing about it is I wrote it on electric guitar, just messing around. I was actually trying to write some sort of bluesy slide song and it turned into this bluegrass Celtic thing that melodically is probably based on some ancient folk songs. The "old scissors grinder" is a reference to a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét called "Johnnie Pye and the Fool-Killer." I have a feeling Mose Allison wrote his song "Fool-killer" possibly from the same story. The album version was a dream come true for me musically, a realization of what I heard in my head. Cindy Cashdollar and Howard Kalish did a wonderful job in making that happen.

I was also curious to know if this song has something to do with death in some way? "I'm crossing to the other side" gave me the impression that the character was going to die, however the line, "cast your spell when I was a child," kind of implies that the mystery mountain is an escape route from pain and violence. The shelter of its trees is the innocent childhood outlook we used to have on life when we could escape pain in fantasy and dream and Mystery Mountain in some way symbolizes that for me, as if it provides a shelter from reality at its harshest. You want to return to its spell and its peace something you had as a child and something that perhaps is lost in adulthood but is still something you wish to return to, the innocence and a naivety that often shelters a child.

You are on the mark that the mystery mountain is an escape route and especially in the childish outlook, which is what I had in mind writing it. I had in mind a couple of places I used to go at various times in my life, places of quiet. I used to like to ride my bike in the woods and find some tree and just stay under it and read. Another place that kind of inspired the song was this pine forest near a place where I spent a couple of summers when I was a teenager. You have pretty much gotten what the song is about.

Another favorite song of mine is "Walkin' In My Sleep." It's very upbeat and the chorus has a kind of humorous appeal. I especially like the line, "If you risk it with me I'll risk it with you". In a way this is a kind of joyful love song on first listen. And in a way the whole album is conceptual in that it shows the different perspectives of love and a relationship. So were you walking in your sleep when you wrote this song?

The thing about that song is the music is actually in a sense more upbeat than what the song is about. I wasn't walking in my sleep when I wrote it, but I was kind of walking in my sleep about whomever it's about -- but not entirely.

I see. Musically I love the pedal steel part and the way it fluctuates up and down the scale, it really adds something special to the song.

That pedal steel part makes that version. That guy Jim Loessberg was great.

The next song "Rockabilly Guy" is quite a cool song. It has that kind of 1950s Johnny Cash guitar riff crossed with a talking part. The story unfolds and is both interesting and enjoyable and proves to be a great break from the deep emotional songs that fill Up Against It. How did it come about and is that how you planned it?

That song is based on a true story, only the setting has been changed. It was a story a friend of mine told me about a couple of rockabilly bands where I live, and this one guy was the main rockabilly guy in town and this other guy showed up and had the look down even more. It was all kind of funny actually. I said to myself there's a song in there somewhere. Now I was trying to figure out what kind of car the guy should drive and I called up this friend of mine, Mike Vogelmann who's played bass and drums in a few of my bands, and said, what kind of car should the guy drive, a 54 Mercury, and he said, no make it something modern. So I wrote the song as a kind of talking blues thing, but more like a Johnny Cash talking blues than say a Woody Guthrie talking blues. When it came time to record it, I put it on the album to break it up, and I had the musicians who could really get the sound it needed. All the other songs were very serious and this song isn't. The arrangement is sort of based on Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue," right down to the Carl Perkins-type fingerpicking part that Casper Rawls did. And the night before, I kept playing that song for Turk McFadden who was the drummer from my band at the time. He knew about and had played country, but I wanted this to be as close as possible. Typically, that song got the most airplay I think.

"Say Yes" is possibly my favorite track on the album. Often a song touches you somewhere inside and you can't work out why, but I find the chorus particularly uplifting. For example you have lines such as "You could drive away the death letter" which is essentially a dark moody line, then you have what I call an emotional break in the chorus, "Say yes, open up the sky". At that moment the soaring vocal heights you reach almost open up the sky in an uplifting and spine-tingling way bringing the song from a dark foreboding feeling, to a bright confident outlook and then back down to the dark verses again. This is the genius of the song and the one thing that gets me each time I hear it. I love this song.

"Say Yes" is one of the older songs on the album and that version is very unique in that I'd never done it quite that way before though it is a song where I messed around with different ways of doing it a lot. I wrote that song when I had a band for a band, and we came up with an arrangement very fast, but then when I had to go out and play solo I had to find a way of doing it. The version on the album which is kind of slow and has an almost country feel to it was totally spontaneous.

Well I have heard an earlier version and must say that the album version is my personal favorite and one that fits its mood and lyrical and musical context perfectly.

Well to me the mark of a good song is if it works no matter how you play it, and this one does that. Frank Campbell came up with the idea of repeating the chorus part at the end and fading it out, so that kind of thing is where the right producer comes in handy. The thing is it can be both a sad and happy song at the same time.

Frank Campbell seems to have been one of these producers who not only can do his job, but who has the ear for the music and the insight and understanding to give the artists something they hear themselves.

Well the thing is, he is a musician, and he kind of was the producer by default. He never said he was the producer, but he lined up most of the musicians. He's a bass player, and he knows instinctively where my music is coming from. I went down a few days before the sessions started and we talked about what kind of records we liked, what we wanted to hear and all that. And to me, he knew almost exactly what I wanted. He would say things during the sessions that were exactly what I was thinking. And see, the thing was Ray Benson hooked us up and before Frank met me, he told Frank, "If Pete had a band here, you'd be the bass player," which was a really nice thing for Ray to say, because Frank is a great bass player.

"Before I Go" is similar to Say Yes in that the chorus line is very, very catchy melodically. I personally enjoy singing a harmony on top of it when listening to it myself. Again the musicianship on this song is outstanding and in particular the accordion part which is overwhelming. In some ways it's a questioning song, what will happen when you go, if you make that change, is it some form of doubt, is it just a basic inquisitive approach to how life changes? Either way the song is again very enjoyable, bright and quirky. The accordion adds a Mediterranean feel that makes it musically so much more interesting. When did you write this and is it as you envisioned?

This was written sort of around the same time as "Up Against It" and several of the songs that are the main core of the album. To me it's a hymn actually, or maybe a prayer, a song of realization. And that may be why the chorus soars the way it does. This particular arrangement again, is just the way it came out. Actually Frank got the idea for the accordion when I wasn't there and Tim Alexander lived next door to the studio and Frank went and got him and he put it on. It's actually more Tex-Mex than Mediterranean, but you can call it whatever you want.
It does have that sort of feel - the questioning feel.

Well I am asking myself the questions and to me they're fairly spiritual questions though not necessarily relating to any one God or any God, more the spirit of the conscience that pervades through the universe.

I like that "conscience that pervades through the universe". It's an interesting poetic phrase.

I don't know where the hell that came from, it just came out.

"Waiting For You," the penultimate song on the album is another great song. I especially like the Knopfler-esque guitar that really expands the canvas of the song onto another level altogether.

Well that's one of my favorite songs, and I had fun writing it even though what I was writing about wasn't all that fun, but some lines in there came from another place entirely and I ran with it. The Knoplfer style of guitar at the end just fit and Paul McLaughlin, who plays on most of the album did a terrific job. The funny thing about it is it was originally going to be the last song on the album until Tangible changed the order, and I'd been opening shows with it for years. One of the guys who was in my band, when I sent him the album right after we finished the sessions said to me, "You made us open every show with that song, and then you close your album with it." He was kidding sort of, but the thing is that albums and shows are different things. The fadeout just seemed like a good way to end the record. I worked out the order during mix-down. I had this legal pad, and just kept writing down different orders till I came up with one that seemed right.

Well whether Tangible altered the order or not, I must say that "Insignificant" is one hell of a closer. The song continues the foreboding and dark mood and ends the album brilliantly. Its sheer beauty and lyrical intensity pretty much call for re-listen. When I first heard it, it amazed me. I didn't just listen to it once. it was direct in every manner and some of the words blew my mind

Well the song ended up last because I had to fight for that song, though it ended being a lot of people's favorite on the album. If there is a song that is the key to the album (as much as the title track) "Insignificant" is it.
Why exactly did you have to fight for it?

I had to fight for it because the guy at Tangible didn't like it, he didn't like the song, he didn't like the playing, so he put it last. And then he got his in a certain review, when someone wrote, "I saved the best for last."

You certainly saved the best till last. Some of the lines cut right through me: "Wish I could find the words to strip you of your pain", "A parade at dusk, chrome turns to rust", and the way you sing silent and cold just gives me goose bumps. The lines seem to lack any hope or light. Chrome turns to rust highlights the mood completely.

Well this was a song that had been in my mind for a while. Some of the lines I had, some were stream of consciousness.

What is the secret that slowly unfolds? Is that the desperation of the song? The pain?

The secret that slowly unfolds is the secret of life or death.

So when you say the "clowns will carry on" are you implying that the laughter continues even in the case of a clown, whether or not the pain is unbearable inside, it will be masked? The secret of life and death, the idea of that line and how you have highlighted it blows my mind because "Insignificant" treads the borderline of that secret in every way, musically, lyrically and in mood.

Well in my mind was kind of the concept and it's a very old concept that perhaps we're all fools in a play, we're all actors in one way or another dancing the parade of life. The concept of the tragic clown goes back for centuries, but these were the things I was trying to evoke, and at the same time how all these things, the stupid little things in life that make people crazy, have nothing to with anything, they are creations of man.

Yes, I agree that's my philosophy in life anyways, that we're pawns in a game played by the Gods. It's an ancient Greek idea, it's an idea, that if I remember correctly, Plato talked about when he said, "Man is the dream of a shadow."

Well for better or worse I know more about the Plato in Rebel Without A Cause than I do about the other guy.

At the same time, as we advance, we are digressing and it's becoming inevitably true that man has invented his doom. It stems back to Greek philosophers, and is quoted in Shakespeare's King Lear, the idea that we are chess pieces, "The plaything of the Gods, They use us for their sport". And in a way "Insignificant" I suppose conveys that feeling.

It's about someone who has encountered, has seen doom, has seen the darkness, yet because there is a life force, wants to rise above that, but at the same time not be bothered with trivialities, because trivialities accomplish nothing but sucking life and blood out of you.
That's brilliant. Have you been introduced to doom?

Well. if Doom is a person the way Jabez Stone met the Devil in "The Devil and Daniel Webster", then no, I haven't met him face to face. But yes, there was a certain void, a darkness, I was introduced to.

Interview with Peter Stone Brown concerning his album Up Against It.