PeterJStein Sings: MY MUSIC CLIPS

• MP3 short clip, hi-fi play (broadband)

Bob Dylan strongly influenced this song, but in a style prior to his motorcycle accident in 1966, after which his approach morphed into a new identity, with the release of John Wesley Harding. Everything fell into place with this song in a very short time. A friend named Bess took photos of me under the open skies of upstate NY, I had an idea of the melody, and, as often happens, during the initial recording of the tracks, the lyrics began to fall into place, with the harmony lines emerging spontaneously during the final recording session.

I want to tell you a story,
All about a lonely man who,
Has had his share of troubles and worry,
‘Cause he’s not that much different from you,

I worked on old Ormistan’s farm,
We were kids and we wanted to fly,
Then he died and he left all his farmland,
Under an open sky,

With the passage of each changing season,
Our lost loved ones have bid us goodbye,
I have more than 10,000 good reasons,
To sing by the River of Time,

These waters are rapidly rising,
And they'll swallow us up alive,
And I’ll follow the sun ‘till it blinds me,
Until all of my time has run dry,

Saw a stranger sneak in through a window,
He said that he couldn’t find the key,
Caught a glimpse of his fading shadow,
And I realized that stranger is me,

A young woman was fond of forgiving,
And she told me she didn’t have a clue,
As to what were her reasons for living,
And I realized that the woman is you,

No one knows what’s behind the dark curtain,
All we know is a mountain of lies,
As the darkness descends to embrace me, under an open sky…