I can't sing this song in this key anymore.  Very sad about that fact.  The recording is about 10 years old.  

This was written as I finally broke free from the religious junk I'd spent my entire twenties focusing on.  Even though the song is about "sadness", it is really jubilant in nature - celebrating the freedom from guilt and religious oppression.

This Sudden Sadness is You

This could use more than an hour of production.  Anyway, it's a newer song.  Originally written on the piano.

I Saw You Where You Are

This isn't a complete song - it's just like an ending or a chorus to a song.  Maybe a grand finale. Written/recorded 2005.  I always intended to do this with real instruments, not Garage Band.

Every Time I Think I've Found You...

You Always Make Me Smile

This song is from 1996 or 1997 - really effing old.  And recorded on a four track cassette tape recorder.  Ahh, the good old days of really lo-fi.  I was going for a sound based on a song I heard by Singapore artist Najip Ali - and I can't find the song anywhere (I don't remember the name either).  Credits include: Jon Krombein on 4-track recorder (and I think maybe keyboards too), Mark Wallace on drums including wood boxes.  Sorry for the sometimes flat vox.

Alone

Picture Perfect

Shawn Cardwell on bass and Terry Purcell on drums - those were the days.

Holding Ashes

This is from when I had a full-fledged Hammond organ in my living room (thanks to Ryan Doss) - though this was originally written on guitar.  I can't say that it's a particularly happy song - but it wasn't a particularly happy time in my life.  So there.

Missed Hearing the Music

I wrote this when I was 14 (or maybe 15).  The recording is from when I was 19 or so.  Again, this is just a song idea - nothing polished, nothing finished.

Did You Read the News

After 9-11 the Oregonian had a full page of obituaries about those that died. These were republished from the New York Times and they weren't really obituaries.  Some were, in that they'd simply talk about the person that was lost, but the vast majority of them were written by spouses or family members in a way that was speaking to the one who'd died.  The wrenching sorrow and loss was palpable.  And the number of these portraits was overwhelming. EVERY DAY that page was chock full of another 30 or so dead - including their photos.  Every day I'd read these and my heart was breaking.  Over and over these stories would talk about the morning of September 11th and it was like any other day.  These people and their relationships were totally intact.  No one expected that they would be saying goodbye for the last time - and so many relationships became "incompleted" (which is not a real word).  <sidenote type="political/moral">It is a total shame that our response as a nation was to find another nation and cause this same pain and grief on its people because, as some have said, we simply needed to "kick some ass". Now that's bullshit!</sidenote>.  After weeks of reading these sorrowing articles, I wrote this song.

Chris Howard 30