Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Liner Notes
Rik is pleased to announce that all 
tracks in The Bonfire Sessions series are available in two high-res formats in addition to MP3s.
FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Coding) is a lossless digital audio coding format, which can compress an audio file by up to 60% of its original file size. When decompressed it becomes an identical copy of the original audio data.
FLAC – 24bit/44kHz and 24bit/96kHz are hi-res formats that most consumers can handle with current technology. iPhones and most other smartphones can handle 24/96 and 24/44 files. To organize and play these files via iTunes, they should be converted to ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec). Conversion is possible via freeware: Try this one
MP3 – 320Kbps (16bit/44.1kHz) – Hi Quality MP3.
If you choose one of the FLAC formats for your download, please be aware that the files are larger and will take longer. Be sure to use a private internet connection, and avoid public connections like coffee shops or airports for best results.
| King of Rock & Roll Lyrics Sample | This is a song about how human nature can be so fickle – that the glories of youth, or popularity, or even the trappings of power, are never all they appear to be, at first. We find ourselves in unprecedented circumstances: in a world deeply divided, socially, economically and politically, and on a planet in serious peril. Could a crowd chanting for Elvis, or Jesus, or Her Majesty, or the POTUS, realize that what they’re really in search of, is the nobility within? |
| Coldest Night of the Year Lyrics Sample | This is a song from five or six years ago, written when I was prepping tunes for the Res 9 album which came out on Provogue / Mascot in 2016. CNOTY has its roots in a few sources: it has a very old-fashioned feeling , as if it was a folk song in a waltz feel. It’s reminiscent of a song I wrote back in 2000 for the Live at Berklee album, Those Shoes: but also, Gordon Lightfoot’s Song For a Winter’s Night: also, I apologize to Bruce Cockburn, because he had a song with the exact same title, and there was no way around it for me – I had the lyric for the first two lines of the first verse pop into my head, and it defied rewrite. Lyrically, this topic also revisits a song of mine – Calling St. Cecilia, about the trials of a long sleepless night, and the fear of a loss of creativity. The good news – always – is that dawn is on the horizon: it’s coming. |
| Love Love Love Lyrics Sample | And in the third spot of this 6 pack – as it was in the first, and as it shall be in the third – here’s the pop song! This song would have fit well as a companion to Unconditional Love on the Good Faith CD – I can hear it in my head with some Latin percussion and horns, and a great rhythm section. But this is how it would sound, solo on acoustic at a campfire, and that’s the prevailing theme of these sessions. I’d like to think that Paul Simon might hear this tune and think – hey, that Emmett guy picked up a few things from me. |
| Blue Sky Train Lyrics Sample | Old School jazz swing tune – a walking bass and a workout of some of the rhythm changes that one learns in college. This is a tune where the title ‘Blue Sky Train’ pops out of my mouth, and then I write a lyric trying to define just what exactly that thing might be. A unifying theme of this Bonfire stuff is the swing from negativity to positivity: and even though the lyric is ironic, there’s no doubting the overall effect. It raises my spirit: it’s fun to play & sing. |
| The Maybe In Between Lyrics Sample | In a world where so much gets painted as partisan black & white – here’s a vote for The Maybe In Between. From the guy who brought you Middle Ground – I’m just sayin’, everything changes, and nothing stays the same. So why not get reasonable, in such unreasonable times? [John Lennon disliked McCartney’s ‘Hello Goodbye’ as an inconsequential song, saying it was “three minutes of contradictions and meaningless juxtapositions.” I hope my lyric has a bit more consequence, despite being rife with opposites.] |
| The Way She Goes Lyrics Sample | This song hung around in my writing notebooks and binders for years. In the Bonfire Sessions, I was looking for some more uptempo, peppy numbers to balance the ballads (especially since it was going to be all-acoustic). My apologies to females for describing the arrival of bad luck stuff as a ‘she’ — but, after all, hurricanes and tornadoes used to be exclusively feminine. They aren’t any more, I know. Maybe the sexism is a surefire sign of the age of this tune. 😉 |
| Part 2 – Complete |