Days of the Last Crusade: Comments, Notes and Inspirations

Introduction -  One of the greatest, yet unsung, lines from any of William Shakespeare’s tragedies is from the last scene of Act 1 in Macbeth: “Receive What Cheer You may.  The night is long that never finds the day.”  I was watching an old Macbeth film one night and, after hearing that line, knew immediately it was the perfect open to this CD if spoken in a deep chilling voice, with a wailing wind in the background and an-other worldly sounding guitar.  Days of the Last Crusade is an intimidating title and should be introduced accordingly.  Dan Lamaestra contributed the special effects and the guitar bits.

On the Road Beside the Moors -  I wrote this song in the early 1990’s on my 12 string Guild in an open D key after drinking a bottle of Bordeaux one Friday night.  I had been writing a short story about a character in the 1960’s who had written a hit song then went to the UK to perform.  After many nights of parties with many British pop music celebrities at the time, the character’s agent sent him off to a retreat in the highlands of Scotland where a lineage of gruesome deaths found my musician entwined in a ghastly hushed local legend.  You’ll have to wait for the short story.   Days of the Last Crusade is an eclectic mix of songs that makes up the strange odysseys of us all in the 21 st Century.  What better way to open it than with a stranger-than-life song?  Dan Lamaestra’s piano rendition exudes more of a Gaelic quality than my 12 string.  We recorded the entire piece with the album’s intro in about 1 hour.  

Taps -  What a way to end a horror song and open a song like No Man’s Land – so fitting!   I wrote and still play No Man’s Land with a drop down D and chime Taps on my Washburn 6 string.  Let’s face it, the electric version of No Man’s Land demands a Taps played like Hendrix. 

No Man’s Land - I wrote this one night watching an Internet video of bunch of crazy Marines dancing and waiving behind an American flag out in front of their sandbagged combat post in Iraq.  That’s when Marines were still allowed to post videos on the Web. Right after that, I saw a bunch of Democrat Senators and Congressmen criticizing, in very broad generalities, our Service men and women.   So, I poured a glass of Cab and picked up my Washburn.  The tune came first and the words quickly followed.  It’s dedicated to the audacity and arrogance of lame politicians pretending they can even dare walk in the boots of American warriors.   The last verse is written to our warriors. 

Remember Me - Like many in the aftermath of 9/11, I was very busy for about 13 months. When time permitted, usually on Sunday mornings, I would sit down and play my guitar or piano to unwind.  I began to write Remember Me within a year after 9/11.  I hammered out the tune on my old J45 and finally put some place holder lyrics to it thinking it would make a nice love song.  It sat there on the back of an envelope with pencil notes and erasure marks in the margin for over a year as I started and finished a short story. In the middle of that story, the protagonist recalls a night in a bar drinking beer with his dog while a folk singer sings a new song he just wrote (my cameo in the story).  To fit a meaningful need in the story, the protagonist’s inspiration, I rewrote the song lyrics in a more patriotic vein moving them closer to a memorial piece.  I finished the short story, by then a novella, in 2005 and revisited the song.  The lyrics still didn’t quite capture what needed to be said and I was struggling.  So, once again, I put them aside until one night, on a cable news show , I heard a far left wing liberal say, among other idiotic conspiratorial expressions, to paraphrase, “It’s time to forget about 9/11 and all the nameless victims."   After hearing that, I rewrote half the lyrics.   I remained hung up on the ending of one line for several more weeks after that - the line that starts with: “I shall not grow old in your eyes”, a paraphrase concept from Lawrence Binyon’s poem, but finally found what I was looking for in a Shakespeare tragedy. The novella was submitted for publication to several journals and rejected before I returned to the song, finished and recorded it one cold Sunday afternoon in October 2006 at Cue Studios in Falls Church Virginia.

Keep Your Hands Off Me - I’m very fond of Congressman Ron Paul and his political beliefs – let the constitution direct America; the fewer laws, the better.  I wrote Keep Your Hand Off Me in 2005, just after the illegal immigrant May Day protests in the states, again with a drop down D, capo on the 5 th fret and played in a D – C – G structure in the key of A.   As you can tell, I was pissed off at the time about illegal immigration and the self serving demands of people who broke in line and cheated to get into this country.  Also, I was torqued about how the conservative Party of America had lost its way and how the liberals were over spending on unnecessary pet projects.  As Dr Paul says, why are we still in Germany, Italy, Japan, Guam, Korea and why didn’t we at least finish the job in Afghanistan before splitting our forces to go to Iraq?   I thought it would be a great song for the 2008 elections, sort of explaining a common man’s view of both parties as they now stand in America, with them and me caught in the middle.  In the end, it is a song of unity.  It is up to Americans to save their country, not just politicians.   I recorded the song at Cue then re-did it with Dan.  Then Dan added drums and bass and got Paul to play the lead parts.  Paul laid down both electric and acoustic parts – both awesome.  It was a tough choice between the acoustic and electric version.  I may have to release it on a future CD in an acoustic performance.      

Less Than Living For Today - “Wanna buy a carbon offset so you can continue to pump acid rain through your industrial chimney?”  Do you know what the carbon footprint of 1 Billion people is?  Can you make the link between a 1-billion person carbon footprint, the insane urbanization it causes and America’s “pro growth” immigration policies?  You hear the liberals – both Reps and Dems – talk about this idiotic irrelevant, legalistic Politically Correct Bullshit all the time.  I used to love to hunt and fish.  I used to love to walk the great outdoors and the southern forests.  Where are they now?  The idiots in Washington DC sold our natural resources to the highest bidders, helped urbanize our woodlands, and passed idiotic legislation like Carbon Offsets and over population immigration rates instead of passing laws to OUTLAW industrial pollution and preserve our natural resources.   I trust Shell Oil drilling in Alaska more than I trust Al Gore protecting our resources by buying and selling carbon offsets while helping developers knock down more woodland to turn forest into urban slums.  That is what this song is about.  The last verse is, conceptually, borrowed from Winston Churchill who once said something similar.  What can we leave our children if not the natural resources that we watch over while we are here?  And, the way we bequeath them that is to think about their future more than the wants of the present.   There’s an old song from the 60’s by the Searchers called “Living For Today.”  I suppose you could say that “Less Than Living For Today” is a tragic consequence of ignoring the future for sake of only Living For Today.

I’m Gone Again - I started this song as a different title but the river from which it was pulled drifted it to the current title having more to do about the reasons we move along on our individual walkabouts, be they romantic or work or just plain lonesome needs.  It was originally recorded on my Washburn with my drop down D, capoed on the second fret.  Then Dan remodeled it with his dobro and faster paced rhythm.   I had always wanted an electric guitar – an Alman Brothers type riff - on the chorus.  After recording the basics, one day out at Dan’s studio out in Haymarket, I said “Can you play this part Dan?” and hummed the electric line.  It took Dan about 30 seconds to get it down and lay it in.  He initially had it playing on all chorus lines then dropped it for the second, again attesting to Dan’s master musician and arranger status.  But, on the few occasions that I still go out and play, I like “Gone Again” in its original format.   

Why - “ Why” was written as a fling with a fictional romantic break up.  Every lover has had one of those, whether imagined or real.  More than that, it seemed an easy listenable concept.  The Beatles had a song about Why.  So did many other artists like those who recorded You Tell Me Why and Tell me Why.   This is my contribution to the endless question.  I recorded it at Cue first in 2006 and, surprisingly, it ended up exactly as it started and as I first imagined it with a mandolin lead and a steel guitar refrain both immaculately played.     

Just For Fun - This is the original track that I recorded at Cue Studios in Oct 2006 with my J45, slightly out of tune, and out of time.  It was the fourth song Dan and I took up.  Dan cautioned me about tuning, for future sake, then re-tuned his guitars, sat down with the track one afternoon and out came his bass and lead guitar parts – perfect fits, both in one take.  I thought I would leave it alone but, after playing the song for six month, folks who heard it kept saying “man, you gotta add brushes on a snare.”  Dan sent me Leland’s email in late winter of 08 and we met at Cue one Sunday afternoon.  Sean, the engineer, took two takes of Leland basically just following along.  The second take was all it took.  I started to write “Just For Fun” in the late 1970’s and finished it in the 1990’s.  For years, I wrestled with a line about Mephistopheles stealing souls but finally gave up and created the last verse in the song.  It stuck.  The original poem and track had a line in it which I later changed to “Deprivation drives them to the heart of darker town”.  Lesson Learned.  When you record a song, always decide up front which lyrics you will use.  Never try to replace a vocal line later.  It’s too hard.  In this case, you can hear the replaced line if you listen carefully.   Contrary to the initial impressions generated by the lyrics, it is an anti-drug song.  The skin bar represents a compilation of bars I’ve seen in my life where people actually did wait in lines to get a hit if not a gram in a bathroom or on a bar top.  Hell, I remember the non stop wide-openness of the late 60s and early 70’s.  Yea, if you’re old enough, we’ve all been there and done that.  And the older I get, the more I realize that, while it is an individual choice, there is a moral behavioral line that is crossed when you partake. And, then another line.  And, that line is not one that you want your children to cross much less blow their limited resources and lives while crossing.  What is it that drives people to such wanton ends?   I’ve been down those roads and worse.  It’s the wrong path.  The street Queen suffers no fools. There is no such thing as responsible living with that Bitch.  Indeed, Pan has bred his party fools and, lest the good in us fails, abstinence is the only sane course after the all night orgy. 

Out of the Dark of the Day - Written in 2006 on a bluesy Sunday morning, Out of the Dark was sort of modeled after Jim Morrison.  I felt like singing like Jim Morrison that morning and this just came out.  Originally, I sang it in a deeper more robust voice to a slightly altered melody.  It surprised me.  “Before the dark cage of night locks us down” surfaced from the depths of the river immediately.  When that line came, the rest of the first verse appeared, then I altered the tune and came up with the bridge. It took a few weeks to fish those words out – all very spontaneously.  It took half a year before I went back and added the second verse.  Dan and I stuck with basic acoustic quality of the song in the beginning and put it to a faster beat.  I recorded the vocals with only the acoustic guitar and it was about that time that I realized it had more of a Neil Young sounding quality than Jim Morrison.  I was recovering from a cold the day we recorded it so my pitch was higher than before.  Lara, from London, was visiting the day that Dan laid in the awesome lead guitar part.  As Dan typically does in a session, he asked: “what’s this song about?” Lara immediately answered – “it’s a love song”.   I smiled and said:  “It’s also a prayer.” Dan took two shots with the lead guitar. His second take is what we used.  My older brother died a month later. 

Lara - Ah, my special song; Lara’s too.  And yes, I do mispronounce Lara but she likes the dialect.  Lara is a song about Lara K, the artist, the Lady behind this project and the art work on this WEB page.  It is about The Odyssey in which we became entangled and the virtual world we share, about her intermittent visits to Virginia over the few years we have known each other overlapped with her visits to sunny Cyprus and the days of her life in London.  I worked hard on this song for 6 months.  The music came first and rather easily but the lyrics held fast to the river’s bottom refusing to surface until, one day, when I shook the log jam and simply sat down and let feelings guide the current.  Initially, it was to be a song about orphans – “teardrops inside a waterfall” – but emails from a Cyprus summer and a snowy winter Virginia visit changed that.  I finished the lyrics in March 2008, gave the score to Matt and two weeks later it was done.  I told Matt I wanted a European flavor with a touch of London so I asked him.  “Do you know anyone who can play a balalaika?”  Right. “How about an Italian mandolin?”  That was not a problem.  Then, I mentioned the need for the London nuance so I said:  “Matt, could I get a string quartet on the bridge?”  He reacted without hesitation before I could say anymore: ”Not Eleanor Rigby.”   “Yep,” I affirmed, “it’s the perfect British accent.”

What They Take Away - The song was written on a bouzouki during and after the tragic period when Jessica Lunsford was kidnapped and murdered. I kept hoping they would find the little girl safe and alive but, when it became that she had become a victim, I began asking – how can the world permanently solve the problem of child predators. I asked many medical professionals that question – those who had worked with abusive victims and predators – and when I found there is no answer, I came up with one. The song plays like a horrible sad short story and ends with the solution of individual guardianship. Every adult on the globe must stand watch to protect the world’s children and take action against these vial predators and the liberal judges who continue to protect and release them on society. Enough is enough. A video of this is in the works. Look for it in Autumn 2008 on Youtube.

Never Let You Go - Let You Go was written in the summer of 2001.  I had a black cat at that time who really loved it and sang along whenever I played it.  It’s a simple love song that I thought might be nice at weddings.  I wrote it in two sittings over two consecutive weekends and polished off the last verse over a couple of months.  In Oct 2006, I recorded it and sent a copy to my 90 year old Aunt.  She swore it was about my late wife and convinced me to listen to the symbolism in some of the words like “night” especially in conjunction with the ending – “when all is said and done”. So, in that context, I decided to put it on “Lest We Forget” for those who lost loved ones on and since 9/11.  But, I still think it makes a nice love song for weddings and Valentines Days.

Days of the Last Crusade - like What They Take Away, “Days”, as I call it, was written on my Bouzouki.  When I play the song in a bar, I still play it with the bouzouki.   It took Dan to build it up to the current version with piano and lead and rhythm, but I wanted my bouzouki in there and I wanted a line from my J45 added to the intro.  So, after finishing the initial track in December 07, I took the piece back to Cue Studios and polished it up.  Then, I took it back to Dan for final touches and mixing.  We finished it in June 2008.   The song is the culmination of most of my sentiments on this protest record – all the things that have gone bad in the last decade in the United States and the many inept self serving politicians, corrupt corporations and special interest groups who care less about We The People and the guiding principles of this nation than their own self serving interests and fortunes to be made.  It is an “old man’s” farewell warning to all that was once best in America – our freedoms, our rights, our lands and our sovereignty.  As he says; “Tomorrow never knows what’s gone until it is too late”.   America needs to regain itself before it is too late.

Music and lyrics copyrighted GL Robson, 2008
Video produced by Lara K
All images used under Public Domain with the exception of those reserved by rights of use by Lara K