(Sand dunes, Block Island.)

It was 1994. After a very successful first album on RCA “Blind To Reason”), I had released my second major label album “Road To Freedom” on MCA Records in 1992. After a long battle with my former record label RCA, it seemed at the time that the better home for me was on MCA Records. They had paid alot to get me on their label, and promised me -in writing – many years of promotion, tour support and dedicated distribution. Then, after making a video for my single “Soul Cat Girl” with a very expensive video director, the string of lies and broken promises began.

As a working musician since the age of 15, I had heard the stories. My parents had friends who were opera and folk singers. They told us tales of tragic of gifted young people being exploited by “the man”. In music magazines and in biographies borrowed from the library, I had read about how heads of record labels had paid their recording artists a mere pittance while they kept the majority of the money the music earned for themselves. The pattern was so ubiquitous it was almost a cliche; it was pretty much the job description of any record label president, or producer or booking agent.

It’s one thing to read the stories. But when it happens to you, the rage it produces in you is all to real. So, in 1994, after being raked over the coals one time too many, I moved away to the country down south, where I could gather my thoughts, write songs on my own timetable and restore my spirit.

Then, in 2006, I was making a new record. “An American Record” to be specific. With some seed money I received from a very special fan, I called on my oldest musician friends from my bands back in the day to record this music with me. We recorded the rhythm tracks at a studio in Concord, Massachusetts and began doing the vocals and other overdubs at the guitarist’s house in Hartford, where I myself used to live. Another old friend, Polly Messer, who had sung with me in the early 80s, heard about the project and offered to sing on the record. I had always loved her unique sounding voice that made my lyrics come to life. I had not seen her since ’94, at a show I did in Connecticut.

The first song I asked her to sing on was “Swamp Yankee”, a funk anthem, complete with horn section, celebrating the humble swamp beginnings of a guy with native roots traced back to the Pequot. She nailed it. Then of course I wanted to keep hearing her. And yes, it’s true, I wanted to keep seeing her. And smelling her (it was that haunting old-world fragrance Shalimar..) So I asked her to sing on “What It’s All About”. I imagined a Greek chorus-like response to the lines of the second and third verses.

So there we were, Polly and I, in January of 2007, standing at the microphone in that dark carpeted room between the house and the studio. As we sang, a new meaning of my words opened in my brain. I thought to myself: perhaps, as I wrote in the choruses of this song, she and I kept “ourselves free” all those thirteen years, because somehow deep down our souls knew we had to wait until the time was right to finally be together.

Because I really couldn’t imagine a more perfect person to be singing these words that were so important to me, and singing them to me, with me. Perhaps it was this odd and very strong feeling of certitude that informed the words that I first largely improvised, and kept, without much editing at all, in the closing bars of the song. I include them here, after the third verse.

Everything happened just as it was supposed to happen. Like the song says, that’s what it’s all about.

To watch the video I made for this song click: https://youtu.be/mazfwcr4kxU?si=3MuP9HtYMlrxHUx7

“What It’s All About” words & music by Grayson Hugh

Verse 1)
I just want to see you down by the beach
where the reeds grow wild and tall
where the lonely roads have lost their reach
and the songs of thunder fall
there’s a mist down by the rocks and sea
comes climbing up the pines
and the stars and ships are shining distantly
and it’s so dark here on the borderline

(Chorus 1)
And we keep ourselves free
and we keep ourselves free
and the moon is shining for you and me
that’s what it’s all about
that’s what it’s all about

(Verse 2)
Now we’ve come to the edge of the ocean
and the night goes on and on
and our lives like stones are breaking free
all our goodbyes, all our goodbyes they have gone
(down to the ocean)
and all our time apart has turned to leaves
(down to the ocean)
in a thousand unsung rains
(goin’ down to the ocean)
we go floating on through the cypress trees
(to the ocean)
with the moonlight in our veins

(Chorus 2)
And we keep ourselves free
and we keep ourselves free
and the moonlight is shining for you and me
that’s what it’s all about
that’s what it’s all about

(Verse 3)
And this is the moment of our singing
this is the story that we hold
and this is the heartbeat that we come bringing
these are the things, all the things of young and old
(down to the river)
this is the sound of the future falling
(down to the river)
and the full moon it does not hide
(goin’ down to the river)
and this is the rhythm of the wild river calling
(to the river)
as we go tumbling in the tide

(Chorus 3)
And we keep ourselves free
and we keep ourselves free
and the moonlight is shining for you and me
that’s what it’s all about
that’s what it’s all about

’cause we’ve always known each other
yeah, we’ve always known each other 
and here we are again
just you and me in the darkness
and way far off all the boats are shining
and all the whales are dreaming for us baby 
and the dolphins are wandering
right here to the island where we are
just you and me, you and me, you and me together 
that’s what it’s all about 

––  words & music © 2007 by Grayson Hugh/River Soul Music/ASCAP ––