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Track listing:
1. Love Won’t Make it Right
2. Color of Your Soul
3. Daddy’s Little Girl
4. Wasted
5. Caroline
6. Everything
7. Wait Another Year
8. Love Me (And Lift Your Mask)
9. Mired in the Middle
10. Undone
11. Come Back to Me
12. Carsen’s Lullaby
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BACK STORY:
So there’s little new about “The Greatest Hits …
You’ve Never Heard” except the track order and a previously
unreleased song. Basically, “Greatest” is a compilation
album, a collection of the best songs (I felt) from my previous
releases. I was playing most of these songs in my sets when I
first got to Dallas, but only half were represented on either
“Demosoul” or “Snapshot”. So I figured
if I joined the albums and came out with new, full-color packaging,
it might be more appealing to the new audience. Hence, the name…
I also wanted to recap on the work I’ve been doing the past
two years and kind of close that chapter. “Mired in the
Middle”, the new track, is leftover from my “Demosoul”
sessions. I had all the parts recorded, just never mixed the song
before I released “Demosoul”. I also left it off because
I originally thought of including it in another project I was
mulling. When that didn’t pan out, I fished the song out
of a box, dusted it off and included it here.
I also think this disc represents a pretty solid effort on my
part. I’ve been playing these songs over and over and over
and I think I’m just now figuring out what they mean. But
some folks knew before me, and most of these have been requested
over time. The collection, on the whole, is a good representation
of who I am and what kind of music I write.
RECORDING PROCESS: Even less new here. About
the only change was I mixed “Mired” using new Edirol
MA-10D monitor speakers instead of headphones. It made a little
difference but not much. The biggest change was using Disk Faktory
to reproduce the album. Full-color inserts, pre-wrapped, the whole
nine yards. And the price was fairly affordable, so that was nice.
LYRICALLY SPEAKING: How many more ways can I
toot my own horn? Read the “Demosoul” and “Snapshot”
entries to find out what I think about most of these songs.
For “Mired”, I’ve never liked the process of
waiting, being stuck between childhood and adulthood, being in
the middle of the journey instead of leaving somewhere or headed
to it. Key line: “Give me something to endure or something
to work toward.” There’s a restlessness that consumes
me at times; I suspect that’s where this song came from.
FINAL THOUGHTS: Overall, not a bad project. A
little new, and a lot of classics. (For me, anyway.) I also look
at it as an album “re-edited”. I took the source material
(two previous CDs) and trimmed it down to something a bit more
direct. Maybe that’s the copy editor in me. Whatever the
case, I think it’s a great introduction for me and for those
unfamiliar with my music. It represents the different forces that
pull on me and make me who I am: passion, frustration, humor,
loneliness, optimism and the endless pursuit of meaningful things. |
