• You Know It (recorded in 1984)

There comes a time in your life
When the plans you made are stalling.
The stars in your eyes won’t even touch the skies
And you know it.

Youth has a way of protecting
Selecting, rejecting, neglecting
The places you see and the people you meet
You’ll outgrow it.

Chorus
And then you turn around
You can’t hear a sound.
Only the whimper of your heart.
Like a ship that’s lost at sea.
Can anybody hear me
Or am I destined to drift on?

Tell me a little about  yourself.
Is your life not what you had in mind?
Can you live with the loss, feel like you’ve been on the cross?
Hear the poet.

Chorus

So hold on tight to the things you love
And never lose your perspective.

Coda
It’s yours, don’t blow it.
The future shows it.
Your heart can’t grow it
And you know it.

I wrote this song the summer before I started college (1982). It has a little of my concern about choosing engineering rather than music or acting as my major. I don’t remember writing it nor do I have any specific memories of the references in the song. If it speaks to you, that’s great. I just can’t remember what I was thinking at the time, but I was obviously trying to drive home some life lessons.

This is one of my few rock tunes (distortion guitar and driving rhythm) and features my Cry Baby Wah-wah pedal (remember those…I still have mine). I’ve always liked the lead on this song. Incidentally, I never wrote or planned any of the leads on any song. With the exception of a few measures, all the lead guitar solos are improvised. Of course, that’s not to say they’re all first attempts….

The song was recorded in Youngstown, Ohio on Jack Chamberlain’s Yamaha PortaStudio 4-track in the winter of 1982/83.

Originally recorded in 4-track mono. Mixed to stereo cassette (2-track) in 1982/83. Re-engineered to digital from the stereo mixdown using Cool96 September 1999