One day on a lake in some boats in the sun, I co-wrote these lyrics with my sister. I’m a dark soul and she’s a romance novelist so naturally we were up for a perfect collision. This story is intentionally silent about its protagonist so that it has space for everyone’s lost forever more.

seed water sun

a thousand clover leaves

After writing dark songs for a few years, a few close friends challenged me to write a love song. They said it will be good for your creative process to be closely hemmed in to the constraints of love. The song started out as a joke (thus the title) but then it quickly evolved into the love story that needed to be told – the real grit of enduring love – all wrapped up in simile.

love is like a simile

When the story of the Northern Ireland peace accord is mixed up with young love you get one night in Belfast. The true story took place in the 90s in a pub in Derry when this oblivious American ordered a ‘black and tan’ and was nearly thrown out by some Ulster unionists. The night then took a fortunate turn with a first-hand education on the ‘troubles’ by those who lived in a locked down city with barbed wire and machine guns at the hard border and the peace accord just weeks away. All the while the young Americans were in love, trying to figure out their own young troubles, and yes, there was a ring in my pocket.

one night in Belfast

Sometimes stories just arrive and want to be told. This hermit is looking back at a life well spent, at a love well loved, and a war left behind. There is no loneliness here, just abundance of well-earned experience mixed together with the transcendent consolation of nature.

hermit in the maples

This is a hard song. It gives voice to my own sexual abuse as a child and feelings that are all to common - deeply buried in many of us. Sadly, we share this burden with millions of others. 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys in the US experience sexual abuse. Beyond the dark chords and rage, this is a song of hope. Though it may be the hardest thing we ever do, we can bravely face our pasts, we can heal, we can survive. And with some help, we can travel back and pick up the pieces, and re-forge our trauma into resilience.

shame you left me

If you have kids, you understand - If you are somebody’s kid, you remember. When we look deep down inside, past all the doubts and fears, there is a seed planted and nourished by those that loved us most. That is the source of our power, our grace, and our resilience.

bloom now sweet flower (feat. Danielle Pinals)

Is there a polar opposite to a political song? Our global community is emerging from the double blow of the pandemic and the crippling isolation that accompanied the virus. In a time when we desperately needed to come together, remember, mourn, and once again gain our footing to move forward – many of our political leaders chose the path of sweeping the deaths of 7 million people under the rug, manufacturing new divisive narratives, and polarizing our nation as well as many around the world with self-serving propaganda. The result is a third blow of trauma and deferment of desperately needed healing. This song is a plea to halt the politics that leave us raw and that threaten to rip us apart. Instead, we need the space to mourn, to reconnect with our communities, and to put our fragile society back together.

only two ways out

The album begins in nature, from a place of solace, connection, and peacefulness. How do you give voice to the silence of the fall forest, the playfulness of the first snow storm of winter, the bold resilience of a violet opening in early spring, the community chorus of a meadow on a warm summer evening?

not a sound

Henry David Thoreau walks into the Rathskeller... a little baby emo punk rock nature song.

sugar snow

underground (basement tape version)

serenity has gone to war (basement tape version)

before the storm (basement tape version)

blindfold (basement tape version)

six hour tide (basement tape version)

the last optimist ~ singer, songwriter, poet, activist ~ on a mission to raise up those who want to make this world a better place despite the ever daunting days before us ~ seed, water, soil, sun, hope, and the daily work

The Last Optimist

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