CD released Sept 2006.A PIANO : THE COLLECTION
 Thoughts

 

On A Piano : The Collection
"Any time you get an opportunity to put something out, I'm in the mind that you seize the project with both hands. And I'm not one to give the record company my blessing and do what [they] think is best. I don't think that anybody knows what's best except the composer or the midwives of the songs themselves.  I had access to all the material since 1990, and my goal was to try and retain the integrity of everything. When you're putting together a work of this magnitude, [the songs] all have to work together. I wanted to have some kind of story -- a payoff denouement for each record. There were no remixes allowed to the first two records. That was my law. It's not a democracy. Well, it is 'til it isn't. When it comes to my world, I have to answer to the songs."

Well, you get more of an octave with this piano (the packaging). It’s keys, and you open the keys and inside this box there’s the music five discs and a picture book really. Not, not a pamphlet, but a real book.

The end of an era...Because I think you pull it all together (what I’ve tried to do anyway) Is to pull all these pieces – The Minister’s Daughter umm, The Pianist that was going to be a classical something-or-other and wore black dresses that were way too tight and became a hussy and it didn’t happen, and the side of me that umm, went through some violent things and survived it and then there’s the side that became a Mum, and all of that is in this work that’s A Piano, and then I’m…I’m gonna do something different.

I’ve been putting this box set together, and I had no idea that I’d be going through a catalogue of over fifteen years. Not just one mix of the track that might be chosen, but every single mix that we had on it. What I didn’t realize when I agreed to do the project is because the record industry has imploded—how they’ve kept the tapes over the years—some of them have been severely damaged. I’m talking about the old tapes, the old analog tapes. Therefore, we had to get everything brought back to our studio in Cornwall and comb through it to find the closest thing to what I thought was the integrity of the original piece.

“My goal was to try and be objective. When you’re putting together a work of this magnitude, it has to work as a body of work now, not as individual records over the years. There’s a side of me that really forced myself to be in the producer’s chair, and that means that you have to make decisions sometimes where the emotional self has to walk out the door for a minute, because you can get attached to things for the wrong reasons.”

In my life I’ve really enjoyed certain box sets, especially Led Zeppelin’s. So when Rhino Records approached me, I decided here was a chance—before I get too old and senile—to make a collection of my songs, add some unreleased tracks and re-master everything, but still hold true to the original recordings....In 2007 we’ll tour again with the new record that we’re working on now. The box set is the end of an era—it’s very much about pulling everything together over the last fifteen years before I jump ship. You have to sense what is going on in the world—it’s a really disturbing place right now. A few years ago I had more confidence that people would make the right choices for our leaders in America and they didn’t. So therefore it’s time to take the gloves off."
 
On Take Me With You
"When we put it up on the boards they looked at me and said, “Well, all it needs is a vocal.’ I said, ‘I can’t do that 16 years later’. I thought about it and the song really started to call me to it. After 48 hours, I could finally finish the lyric and record it.”
 
On Zero Point

“It talks about Rome ending - B.C. and then A.D - and the idea of what was supposed to happen at zero point. I found there to be a strange correlation between America being the super power that it is and Rome being the super power that it was, and what comes along with that kind of power… how you can really forget the responsibility that you have to humanity. The ego becomes bigger than spirituality.”

"There has to be a balance. I don't see dark as evil and light as good. I see it as the unconscious, things hidden that you have to see. The reason I say the Christian church has to claim its dark side is because so many civilizations have been destroyed in the name of Christ. I don't believe for one minute that his teachings were about destruction at all. People harnessed Christ's teachings. The Protestants have so much guilt to come to terms with. The feminine, the female, the essence of woman, the sensuality of it, is sacred. Those in the patriarchy making these decisions have been really terrified of holding the spiritual side and the physical side of themselves. There is a line in 'Zero Point,' where I sing, 'Take off, lift off, creaming Jesus still.' To me, if you are really in the balanced state, you are creaming the divine."

"Zero Point - your time is coming"