Old Men Should Be Explorers

A line in one of these songs sings: 'I was born and I will die, And in between have labored to answer why'. Now, as I find myself in the latter years of life, it seems that everything I've done and been has been framed and driven by this question. The details become less important than the sense of a life's task, quest, purpose that--like a dangerous riddle--must be answered correctly. Over the years there have been many answers. But the riddle has persisted, played with them, sometimes gently, sometimes fiercely. This living and defining riddle weaves through these songs. The songs express glimpses, hints, intimations of a guiding intelligence that arrives in the blessed absence of striving. In the course of my life I've come to suspect that the riddle doesn't want an answer; it wants a relationship. These songs are my attempt to follow the hints and promptings that the riddle gives, to be faithful to it's inscrutable beckonings. Perhaps, through them, you may hear a whisper of a riddle that is calling just to you.