WARNING Dangerous Moves

Origin of Songs

A Ghost in You— In 2013 a law client of mine asked me to draft a contract proposal for film financing for a faux-documentary about a team of ghost hunters looking into a “haunted” hospital.  I decided I’d write a song for the movie.  The image of this song began with the thought of a boy (me) lying in his bed one night when, “A chilling breeze, drifts through the door…”  That’s all I needed to write this spooky song.  Only upon writing its Bridge, however, did I realize that the singer had already become a Ghost.  It was a warning!  Oooo.   The music went through a couple of versions, but was always, of course, in a minor key.  The sound effects were a natural for this good-natured “scary” subject.  I think that the song would be perfect for the big screen, but I also imagine kids in a Middle School doing a live performance of A Ghost in You for Halloween, and when that first occurs, I hope I’m invited!

Cut…from Inside Out—a friend of mine in Australia, Michael, once asked me how things were going.  I went into some detail as to my recent acting, music and law career events, but he countered by responding, “No, I mean financially?”  It was this singular question/comment which led me to write Cut…from Inside Out.   Over the years, I had experienced first-hand how negative others could be about creative endeavors and accomplishments.  So for all of you who enjoy, and can relate to, this song, kindly thank (the doubtless well-intentioned) Michael for unwittingly giving me the inspiration for Cut…from Inside Out.

Deadly—I always admired Henry Mancini’s Sounds of Hatari.  Although Deadly is by no means the equal of that epic song, it is my attempt at creating an instrumental which exudes emerging danger.  As usual, I composed the song on my guitar, trying out different progressions.  The end result, with no small measure of producing and arranging assistance from Paul D. Jameson, is what you hear in Deadly.  Some time after Deadly was completed, I was rethinking the arrangement and the feel and decided that it needed guitars instead of an electronic lead melody and other changes, and the second mix/arrangement occurred, which is now referred to as the "Dark Skies mix."  The original arrangement is the "Roadhouse mix," named by a friend of mine, Steve Landis.

What, what?—I was kicking back, watching a horror film spoof one evening when one of the girls in the film screams at the hidden ghoul, “What are you waiting for?!  What are you waiting for?!”  The joke is that some hapless guy has been standing, out of the girl’s sight, on a nearby rooftop threatening to jump and upon hearing the girl, he does jump to his death.  Soon after, I imagined a high-energy pop song which starts off, “What, what baby are you waiting for?”  I added the next line, “Knock, knock honey onto my front door” and proceeded to finish the song and melody in the next hour or so.  The “What, what” intro set the tone for the opening guitar beats.  When contemplating some kind of guitar solo for the song, I decided instead to write the Weather Man speech (“Today in the basin…”), and asked none other than Paul D. Jameson himself to give the weather report.  The song was complete.

7-Day, 7-Night, One-Night Stand—I had had this hook and a rough draft of the song in my notes for literally decades when recently I stumbled across the notes.  I liked the idea all over again and used my current (much improved) skills at songwriting to rewrite the song and bring this tune to life.  It has since become one of my favorites because of its lively melody and great storyline.  On one of my vocal-takes in the studio, I performed the line, “I shoulda filed suit!” as a spoken, indignant comment.  Paul D. Jameson liked that spoken delivery so much (and cracked up every time he heard it replayed) that he refused to use any other take of that line for the final mix.

Whenever I—One recent evening in 2014, I was sitting on my living room couch relaxing.  For no particular reason, the words “whenever I” came to mind.  A few moments later I walked over to the computer and began writing the lyrics to this song.  Sometimes, as a writer, you simply have to feel the creative potential of random events, such as this moment, “whenever I.”  Somewhere during the first verse I learned what the song was really about.  When I later played the completed song for a couple of girls I had met at lunch, they both really liked it but one of the girls was in tears.  She had had a similar experience with an ex-boyfriend.  Sometimes, we need songs to remind us about our troubles in life and the inspirations we receive toward solutions.  In this respect, Whenever I is similar to the theme of one of my previous songs, The Island.

Spring Waltz—Spring Waltz was born one spring day as I was playing my classical guitar (an Aria Concert Guitar), creating melodies and finger picking my way along.  When I eventually finished the first section, I created a middle section that was interesting to me as a transition and then decided to repeat the first section to complete the melody.  Once I had later recorded the guitar part in the studio, I decided that Spring Waltz needed some harmony from other instruments.  So I took a CD home and played it over and over while creating harmony live on my guitar.  I then sent the completed harmony part in written form to Paul D. Jameson, which he downloaded into his computer.  Back in the studio, he and I assigned various instruments to the harmony parts to mix with the guitar.  Spring Waltz was the result.  Over Thanksgiving, at a family gathering, I popped the finished song (guitar and harmony instruments combined) into a CD player and played the guitar part live.  My father remarked wryly that he didn’t know where all my musical talent came from, but that it wasn’t from him.  Lol.  That’s probably true, although he has been a great dad for me in many other ways.  That turned out to be the last time I performed any music for my father before his passing.

Free to Love Again—Back in 1984, as a young lawyer I was contacted by a father who wanted to seek an Order changing sole physical custody of his eight-year old daughter from the girl’s mother to himself.  He was divorced from the mother of his child and now lived with his new wife, a darling young woman.  I took the case, on credit, since he had very little money.   The evidence showed that the mother, unfortunately, had a terrible problem with alcoholism and was neglectful of and emotionally abusive toward the daughter, and used her animosity towards the father against the girl.  The daughter wanted to be with her father.  The case was a difficult one however since, back at that time, there seemed to be a judicial preference, in practice, toward granting custody of young minor children to the mother.  After expert testimony from an independent Child Psychologist who had been appointed by the Court, we prevailed and sole physical and legal custody of the child was Ordered to the father, my client.  At the final hearing, the daughter presented me with a porcelain statute of a small child, wearing an oversized suit and holding law books, which I still have today.  She told me that I was, “a lawyer for kids.”  Over the next several years, the father paid his legal bill to me in full, at $35 a month.  The emotional and financial burden of this custody battle was a heavy one for my client, but largely because of his love for his girlfriend, he had still been willing to remarry and fight for and establish a home for his daughter.  This client’s story inspired me to write Free to Love Again, which I later recorded, some thirty years later, in 2015. 

Devil’s Bride—A producer/friend was going to make a film about the wife of Satan.  It started me thinking what their relationship would be like, him being the Devil and all.  Once I dialed in on the masochistic and sadistic nature of this character and his rather unusual tastes in women, I wrote Devil’s Bride.  A girlfriend of mine, Bui, in Thailand used to squeal with laughter whenever I sang the song to her and slightly changed the lyrics to, “When I see her eye” instead of eyes.  Dark humor.  Anyway, the movie was never made, but the producer/friend loved the song and I hope you do too.  It’s all in fun.

Final Answer—Okay, so this song, Final Answer, was written for and inspired by a soon-to-be silver screen character, Thomas A. “Tommy” Dancer, created by Larry Bishop and me.  Larry and I had been working on another script together when I called him one night after watching a courtroom drama on television.  I left a message to the effect that with my background as a lawyer/writer/actor and his genius as a director/writer/actor we should write a film about a lawyer.  I told him it would be a killer project for us.  The next time we saw each other in person, Larry said that he had gotten my message and that we should write a script about a lawyer who would kill for his clients.  Perfect.  The Writ (the resulting film script) was born and the character of Tommy Dancer boldly emerged.  I saw an opportunity to bring the character to life in music for the film.  Once in the studio, the mood of the piece was created, we laid down the tracks and we tried to make the vocals very…assertive.  This guy means business and if you don’t believe me, “It just may be, that death might be, exclusively, the Final Answer.”

Finished with Your Love—A young woman was enamored with a client of mine.  One evening, she went along with us to a guitar performance by my client at a hip bar on the Sunset Strip.  The girl was so unbelievably good looking, voluptuous and inviting that virtually every guy in the bar was falling over themselves trying to talk to her, get a better look at her or just be near her.  I pondered what it would be like to have this particular girl as a girlfriend, with all the associated emotional pain and confusion which was likely to follow.  A few days later, I was sitting on the couch in my living room, watching a television show end.  I shut off the set, got up to go to sleep, and remarked to myself aloud, “Finished.”  Before I made it past the computer, however, the two ideas—the “too-good-looking” girlfriend and the word “finished” serendipitously coalesced.  Sitting down at the computer, I wrote the lyrics of Finished with Your Love in less than an hour.  The Bob Dylan-esque sound of the melody and performance was purely coincidental.

Stix—I had studied Pakamut (the local name in Cebu, Philippines, for the martial arts known as Escrima/Kali/Arnis) with Grandmaster Felix Raja Roiles (three-time World Champion in full-contact stick fighting) for a couple of years when one day I was sitting at a table in Bangkok, Thailand and started tapping out a beat with some unsharpened pencils.  I placed one atop the other so that one pencil hit slightly later than the other and it produced an interesting sound.  I continued with this until I had a sort of driving sound which brought to mind Warriors in the Philippines preparing for their epic battle with Magellan long ago.  I then picked up one of my guitars and created a series of melodies.  Upon returning to California, the real fun began, working with Paul D. Jameson in his studio, putting down the tracks for this song and adding the wildlife sound effects.  However, the song really needed a “sticks” solo near the end.  So, I asked Felix if he would come into the studio to perform a sticks solo I had created, and Stix was completed.  When you hear the violins, visualize several Filipinas in flowing white dresses on a steep grassy hillside playing their strings, while Filipino warriors prepare for battle through mock stick fighting in the foreground.  And wait for the Gong!

Gore—I watched the film Manhunter (on television, I believe) and had, not surprisingly, an eerie feeling about the antagonist.  Manhunter is, as you may recall, the prequel to Silence of the Lambs.  The film sort of placed me, involuntarily, inside the head of this terrible killer in the film.  That night I decided that the way out of that bad space was to write a song from the killer’s point of view.  Gore was the result.  For years I refrained from sharing this song with anyone since it seemed too gruesome, but over time (possibly after the television series Dexter became popular), I decided that Gore was, after all, simply a song.  So, into the studio I went.  Paul and I then came up with a funky beat and arrangement for the song, which helped to make it disarmingly interesting.

There Come a Time—Originally entitled, They’ll Come a Time, the majority of song was written by me several years before I produced it in the studio.  It didn’t seem quite complete until I wrote a Bridge for the song which starts out, “Banding together, as proud as we’re strong…”  There are never enough songs to glorify freedom and the honor of battle for justice.  Perhaps people could use this song in response to recent military coups or other equally offensive police-State actions.

Lonesome—I have nothing much to say about Lonesome, except that I’m sure a lot of people can relate to a song about being lonely.  Originally written in a minor key, the song was too much of a downer.  So, at Paul’s suggestion, I rewrote the melody, using a major key, and sent it off for Paul’s comments.  He gave a thumb’s up and Lonesome was recorded.  When you find yourself feeling lonesome and blue, just remember, “There’s always some Lonely, more lonesome than you.”      

WARNING Dangerous Moves—the album title:  I happened to have had with me, returning from Thailand one trip, a CD marked in Sharpie black ink, “Dangerous Moves.”  I went through Homeland Security screening in LAX airport and my belongings were searched.   I was directed to a closed and locked interrogation room.  Upon examining the CD, a Homeland Security Special Agent had the disk in hand, stared me down and asked firmly whether there were any photographs or videos on the disk.  I responded that there were none to my knowledge, but that I had never looked for that.  It was a music CD of some of my songs, made up for me by my co-producer on my second album called, “Dangerous Moves.”  This genius thereupon "seized" the CD and demanded the co-producer’s name.  I immediately gave it up, “Paul D. Jameson.”  The CD was returned to me a day later without comment.  Paul’s name probably appears forever-inscribed on some arcane Homeland Security report about the CD “Dangerous Moves.”  I just hope they enjoyed the music.