Journey Song was written for a children's play that toured across Ontario in the summer of 1975. Recorded in 1976 at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario, the song was engineered by Mike Jackson and remastered by Rod Phelan. 

Don Spanner: vocals, guitar, gong, tympani, glockenspiel and Moog synthesizers 
Terrianne Miller & Myra O'Malley: backup vocals

For video remix by Jim Lamarche, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5x30og0y1o

Journey Song - Don Spanner

Composer: Don Spanner
Produced by Tom Treumuth; Engineered by Brian Fox
Guitar & Lead Vocals: Don Spanner
Fender Rhodes: Tom Treumuth
Bass: Pat Packer
Classical guitar: Brian Fox
Backup Vocals: Patty Geary & Theresa Moylan
Recorded and mixed at Music Industry Arts Recording Studios, Fanshawe College, London, Ontario, 1975

Memories - Don Spanner

Lyric by Elliott Hayes; Music by Don Spanner
Recorded in 1978 at Awes Studio, London, Ontario
Don Spanner: vocals & guitar
Jeanie Rogers: flute
Recorded for James Reaney's play, Listen to the Wind, this track is released in tribute to Elliott Hayes, a rising Canadian playwright who in 1994 was taken from all who loved and knew him, victim to a drunk driver. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Hayes

"Leaves and loves fall, heeding the wind's call. Healing, her cool breath... kneading the soft earth."

Leaves And Loves - Elliott Hayes & Don Spanner

Lyric by Elliott Hayes; Music by Don Spanner
Recorded in 1978 at Awes Studio, London, Ontario
Don Spanner: vocals & guitar
Jeanie Rogers: flute
Recorded for James Reaney's play, Listen to the Wind, this track is released in tribute to Elliott Hayes, a rising Canadian playwright who in 1994 was taken from all who loved and knew him, victim to a drunk driver. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Hayes

Lullaby - Elliott Hayes & Don Spanner

Recorded in 1975 at Creative Electronics Studio, Fanshawe College.
Music: Don Spanner
Lyrics: Nora Galloway
Producer: Dennis Siren

Musicians: Don Spanner (guitar & lead vocals); Ray Boulet (cello, piano, and Moog synthesizer); Nora Galloway (backup vocals)

Tomorrow (Nora Galloway & Don Spanner)

Composed in 1976, Elliott Hayes wrote this lyric and Don Spanner wrote the music. The song was taken into Hungry Hollow Studio, Parkhill, in 1977. It has since been carefully restored, somewhat revised (a new arrangement), and remixed. Special thanks to Rod Phelan (The Tall Man with Ten Ears) for his musical insights, for his assistance on the mix, and for breathing new life into a 46 year-old song.

Original acoustic Gurian guitar & vocals: Don Spanner (1977)
Spitfire LABS Cello Moods and Cinematic Frozen Strings: Don Spanner (2022)
Oboe, horns, bass and chorus: Rod Phelan (2022)
Mix Engineer: Rod Phelan (2022)

For information on Elliott’s all-too-brief but highly notable career, please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Hayes as well as his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Elliott-Hayes-Echo-Hill-Productions-420260881389428, managed by his sister Alycin, herself an accomplished author.  #amazonhitchhiker

No Way to Treat a Guy (lyric)

You look good by his side
Going along for the ride
I always said you’d get by
You were born to live high
I had something to give
And a heart to give with
I always said you’d get by
Ain’t no way to treat a guy.

Left me hanging in the air
You thought I wouldn’t really care
If you made it with him
And came back home again
Put me down with such style
Au revoir with a smile
Another girl would’ve said goodbye
Ain’t no way to treat a guy.

I thought I’d wait up for you
While you took time to choose
Between my accommodating ways 
And the man who always pays.
I’ve been hungry too
And wanted things like you
You may get what you get
But I’ve got self respect

You’ve found love at last
And it tastes of hard cash
I always said you’d get by
Ain’t no way to treat a guy

Too many people, too much to give
Missing someone is no way to live
I will find someone else or I’ll live by myself
All that you wanted and all that there was
You were just living and I was in love
Oh I will find someone else or I’ll live by myself

Put me down with such style
Au revoir with a smile
I always said you’d get by
Ain’t no way to treat a guy.
Aint no way to treat a guy.
Aint no way to treat a guy.

No Way To Treat A Guy - Elliott Hayes & Don Spanner

This is a cover of a brilliant and prescient song composed by Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp in 1979, and produced by Robert Fripp on his album "Exposure". All in all, a wonderful album.

Here Comes The Flood (Cover - original by Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp)

Lyric by Elliott Hayes; Music by Don Spanner.
Recorded in 1979 at Hungry Hollow Studio, Parkhill, Ontario as a demo, this song took 43 years until hitting post-production. Originally engineered by Rod Phelan in 1979 with post-production added in 2023. Some things are worth waiting for.

Don Spanner: Gurian acoustic guitar, lead vocal, double bass (Danny Thompson Software)
Mark Clifford: electric guitars
Nora Galloway: background vocals
Rod Phelan: organ


Every Night It's Over (lyric)

You are silver in the night in the light of half a moon
as the rays of grey fall silently into the tired room
I can hear your breathing, sleeping soundly by my side
Your skin as warm as summer in the cold October night
Touching you so softly, so as not to wake you too
Tomorrow will be time enough to tell you we are through

But words fade like midnight when I look into your eyes
Every day I fall in love before you realize
that every night it's over
when I lie awake and try
to say the things in silence
that your eyes turn into lies

I love you like I used to do before we fell in love
In other words I am afraid I do not love enough
But we have no forever now, just nights and shades of grey
Touching you so softly, I have got no way to say
that every night it's over
when I lie awake and try
To say the things in silence that your eyes turn into lies.

Every Night It's Over (remix)- Elliott Hayes & Don Spanner

“These Days The Kids is Drinking” was a fun song to perform. Elliott’s lyric took a cheeky and irreverent look at the perils of teenage drinking, written at a time when the provincial drinking age had been lowered from 21 to 18. It was the best damn gift the Province of Ontario ever gave me when I was coming out of final year in high school. My peers will remember! The Queen's Hotel in Stratford was one such place we gathered. Also, after a hard day’s work writing, Elliott and I would retreat to the Chalmers Lounge at the Avon Theatre for some nightcaps. Fun times.

This song was recorded in 1977 in the living room of Elliott’s parents’ home in Stratford, Ontario. Recorded by Bob Stewart, you’ll hear myself, Elliott (using his Iggy Pop vocal style in places – he loved Iggy) and Helen Basson doing backup vocals. We definitely had some fun on this one.

These Days The Kids Are Drinking - Elliott Hayes & Don Spanner

Lyric by Elliott Hayes; Music by Don Spanner. 
Recorded in 1979 at Hungry Hollow Studio, Parkhill, Ontario. 
Engineered by Rod Phelan. 
Don Spanner: vocals, guitar, bowed and slide dulcimer, piano.
Rod Phelan: Highway 7
Released in tribute to Elliott Hayes, a rising Canadian playwright who in 1994 was taken from all who loved and knew him, victim to a drunk driver. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Hayes

Nobody's Fool (lyric)

Ain't nobody gonna take you back
to those bygone days of Kerouac
And that's the funny thing about the past
It's fun as hell but it don't last
so hit the road
with your new backpack
Your street-proud heroes have left no tracks 
They've gone down old Route 66
Bound for glory and not for kicks

A new generation of alcohol cool
Nobody's brother and nobody's fool
Cash on the wrist in the back of the car
Time on our hands we know who we are

The future bleeds on the record sleeves
of all the rising stars
We walk tall on nembutal grace with
t.v. eyes and a smile on the face and
when they say "another war"
we switch to kitsch on Channel 4

This is remembrance of the good things past
A picture of history through the looking glass
Reversing the meaning and losing the point
Talking about Garbo and rolling a joint

Ain't nobody gonna take you back
to those bygone days of Kerouac
And that's the funny thing about the past
It's fun as hell but it don't last
so hit the road.

Nobody's Fool (Kerouac)

Nobody's Fool (Kerouac)- Elliott Hayes & Don Spanner

Lyric by Elliott Hayes; Music by Don Spanner. 
Recorded in 1979 at Hungry Hollow Studio, Parkhill, Ontario.
Engineered by Rod Phelan.
Don Spanner: guitar and vocals
Nora Galloway: background vocals
Released in tribute to Elliott Hayes, a rising Canadian playwright who in 1994 was taken from all who loved and knew him, victim to a drunk driver. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Hayes

Every Night Its Over

Every Night Its Over - Elliott Hayes & Don Spanner

Lyric by Elliott Hayes; Music by Don Spanner.
Recorded in 1979 at Hungry Hollow Studio, Parkhill, Ontario.
Engineered by Rod Phelan.
Don Spanner: vocals, guitar
Nora Galloway: background vocals.
Released in tribute to Elliott Hayes, a rising Canadian playwright who in 1994 was taken from all who loved and knew him, victim to a drunk driver. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Hayes

Sky (lyric)

Our eyes on the horizon
Where the night is rising
The sun falls to the ocean
And the reign of day is broken

The world is plated silver when the stars and moon explode
And midnight washes over the sky Apollo rode
And man begins to wonder whether one day he will roam
to the distant planets and if he is alone

So afraid of finding that his heart longs to be there
Other planets asking, are there other planets there?

A star falls in the distance and a million people wish
Alone in what they're wishing but not alone in this...
that all the worlds are wishing, each an island in the sky
that the sea of time and distance would allow them all to fly

Night we call a darkness
For within it we are blind
But there's more within that darkness
than the light of day can find

So afraid of finding that his heart longs to be there
Other planets asking, are there other planets there?

The world is plated silver when the stars and moon explode
And midnight washes over the skies Apollo rode
And man begins to wonder whether one day he will roam
to the distant planets and if he is alone

Alone, alone
Alone, alone
Alone, alone

Sky - Elliott Hayes & Don Spanner

Exploring sounds with a Gurian guitar, dulcimer, piano, midi keyboards, Arturia Microbrute analog synthesizer and a Moog Theremini, using Logic Pro, iMac, and Adam A7 monitors.

Spanner

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