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the stories behind
the songs |
Wasting My Time (© Tom DeVries/Purple Heart Songs)
Tom: This is one of my very first songs, about a
schoolboy crush. (OK, it was college.) It's the simple
age-old story of worshiping someone to the point where
butterflies tie the tongue. Written in 1973.
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On Mackinac (© Jay Round/Haplotype Music)
Jay: Mackinac Island in northern Lake Huron is one of
Michigan's premiere vacation destinations. When I was
contacted to write some music for a documentary about the
island (The Four Seasons Of Mackinac Island DVD), I was
eager to do so. This is what I penned for the program's
theme song. I had almost forgotten about this song until it
was requested at one of our concerts by someone who bought a
copy of the documentary. It's been a regular part of our
shows ever since.
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The Crossing
(© Jay Round/Haplotype Music)
Jay: A number of years ago, I wrote the musical
soundtrack for a documentary about the Sleeping Bear Dunes
National Lake Shore. This extensive park along Michigan's Lelanau Peninsula includes very impressive sand dunes on the
mainland and North and South Manitou Islands in Lake
Michigan. This song was used in the show when the ferry
boat leaves Leland headed for South Manitou Island, thus the
"crossing".
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Out of Range (© Tom DeVries/Purple Heart Songs)
Tom: Bob Dylan does a song called "Things Have
Changed" at the end of the film The Wonder Boys, with
Michael Douglas. I got to thinking about how Dylan was the
reason I started playing guitar, and that I should write a
sort of tribute, something that emulated him just like he
did with Woody Guthrie. "Out of Range" is actually a line
from that song and is about a guy who's disillusioned and
confused about changes in his life. Written in 2004.
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Ballad of the Detour Brothers (© Tom DeVries/Purple
Heart Songs)
Tom: I tend to like songs that are borderline
outrageous in some sense and maybe that's where this song
came from. Is it a true story, or the product of an
overactive imagination? One regret is that a melodic sixteen
bar "dream sequence" in waltz time, for between the
penultimate and last verses, was composed after the
recording was completed. That will have to wait until next
time. Written in 1978.
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One Time Friend (© Jay Round/Haplotype Music)
Jay: This is the first song I wrote that was
published. It was 1977 and I had just recorded a version of
this song on an album of predominately hammered dulcimer
music. I was living in Nashville, Tennessee at the time and
doing a lot of shows on the road with Grandpa Jones of Hee
Haw and Grand Ole Opry fame. A representative from BMI
heard this song and offered me a contract for the publishing
rights. How could I say no?
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Cedarville (© Tom DeVries/Purple Heart Songs)
Tom: When I graduated from College in 1976 my parents
bought me a one-way trip to White Salmon, Washington where I
lived in the woods planting National Forest Service trees
for about a month. Sometime in July, some of us collected
our pay and set off for British Columbia. One night I was
playing guitar at about 2:00 in the morning in Vancouver's
Stanley Park when five kids stumbled up and asked for a
song. I'll never forget what one of them said when I
finished. "Man, I love guitar music, if I could play I'd
write songs because it's such a great way to tell a story!"
I thought about what he said for several days and then
despite having written nothing for over a year, crawled into
the back of my friend's truck with a flashlight and wrote
this song of total innocence. But I really wasn't as big a
loser as the guy in the song, honest! Written in 1976.
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East Virginia (© Jay Round/Haplotype Music)
Jay: While playing a series of concerts in the
Washington DC area many years ago, I met a family that
allowed me to stay with them at their home in Annandale,
Virginia. I was surprised by their generous hospitality,
how quickly we became "family", and at how seamlessly
everything worked out. The entire week was magical - I had
made new friends, the concerts went well, and the Bureau
Chief of ABC News introduced me to Barbara Walters and even
arranged for me to meet President Carter in the Rose Garden
at the White House. I wrote this song for the Keith Young
family as I drove out of town.
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Turned Up Missing (© Tom DeVries/Purple Heart Songs)
Tom: Our musical friends the Oxy Morons, (Jeff
Schroder and Mark Jovian), used to send e-mails soliciting
ideas for their "oxy moron of the month." "Turned up
missing" has always been my favorite and since they never
chose it I figured I should use it for a song. It started
out to be about mundane things that turn up missing,
eliciting many pages of lines, but turned into the angry,
leftist, environmentalist rant that it is largely due to a
nudge by my girlfriend Eunice, although I must claim total
responsibility. The song almost turned up missing from this
CD because of its "borderline outrageousness" but was
included when our favorite guitar monster Steve Boynton said
he loved it. Written in 2004.
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Drop On By (© Jay Round/Haplotype Music)
Jay: I gave myself an assignment one evening to write
a song from the perspective of a jilted, yet optimistic,
former lover who still carries the torch for an old flame.
He hopes that by putting out a welcome mat she'll come
back. It's pretty obvious to all except the rejected one
that she's gone for good. Musically, I was experimenting
with a few new chord voicings and the arrangement slid
toward an R & B groove.
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Chicken Hill Farm (© Tom DeVries/Purple Heart Songs)
Tom: While living at Chicken Hill Farm near Alto,
Michigan in 1975 with three other college kids, my guitar
picking and traveling buddy Bill Van Vugt and I discovered
the music of Norman Blake. While attempting to learn Blake's
instrumental "Spanish Fandango," Bill came up with something
somewhat different, calling it "Japanese Fandango," which I
further modified while maintaining certain melodic themes
for this song. After being thrown off the farm, my friend
Carl Byker made a comment that became the lyrical seed for
this song, which I tried to capture in the last line.
Written in 1976.
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Timberline (© Jay Round/Haplotype Music)
Jay: A good friend of mine, the Reverend James Howie
of southern Illinois, owns several abandoned 10 acre mining
claims high in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. He built a
cabin on one of the properties that is near the ridge of the
Continental Divide above Pitkin, Colorado. It was during a
stay there that I wrote this song in the high altitude thin
air. I've always performed this one in live shows, but this
is our first recording of it.
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Quarter Moon (© Jay Round/Haplotype Music)
Jay: I wrote the main theme of this song while
playing for a store grand opening in Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma. A beautiful quarter moon was rising over the
prairie horizon that evening and this melody just came
pouring out of me. Various parts were added to the song
since then and it evolved into what it is now.
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Cat's Out Carousing (© Tom DeVries/Purple Heart
Songs)
Tom: In 1998 I had a solo summertime gig for each
Sunday's brunch cruise on a riverboat. Several times people
told me they thought my voice sounded like Harry Chapin's
and that I should do some of his songs. So I learned "Cat's
in the Cradle," but got to thinking about how different my
experience was with my son, Ryan. In the Chapin song
(co-written with his wife Sandy), the dad is never around
and the son wants to be just like him. Well, I was usually
at home except for a few local music gigs. Is that part of
the reason my son had no desire to be like me or is it just
genetics? Written in 2004.
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Our Own Theme Song (© Jay Round/Haplotype Music)
Jay: I've always been intrigued with the production
values of the old radio and television program theme songs
of the 1950's and 1960's. They were all hyped up and had
really cool vocal harmonies. Our live shows always have a
degree of humor involved, so it seemed natural that I try to
create a tongue in cheek theme song of our very own. I
wanted to show that while entertaining is very important to
us, we don't take ourselves too seriously. |
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