Song By Song of Breaking Time

The album opens with “Hey Now Joe”, an up-tempo folky kind of tune with a hooky chorus that asks the question: where do you go, when you go into that long dark night? “It was inspired by another friend who I watched passing to another place and when he was gone, wondering where it was we all go in the night.” For some there is always the question, each moment of decision brings “Where do You Go?” No one really ever knows…you just go. You can hear Russell Gray playing 3 or 4 different guitars from acoustic in the intro to a Fender Tele with Marshall stacks in the solo. “Buffy had a real challenge on his hands mixing all those tracks but in the end did an amazing job.”

The second song is “I’m Gonna Love You Anyhow” and it’s about a character who loves a woman despite whatever she throws his way and even when he seems to be sabotaging their relationship by staying out all night still holds fast to the love. He says, “I’ll be back in the morning, home with the cows, and I’m going to love you anyhow.” “Mia Sheard’s background vocals drive the choruses to places they never would have gone without her. She recorded three different backing tracks, each in a different octave. I never saw anything like that, she was amazing.

”Bitter Wind” follows and is an anthemic song written in response to a time when a refugee ship from Sri Lanka anchored off the Canadian Coast and the refugees were jailed when they came ashore. “That’s how the song started, then it went off on its own, and I don’t know if I could tell you what it means. It means a lot of things, I guess. Strangely I sometimes refer to lines in the song myself, quoting myself, only it seems like someone else. I started writing it and only got the first verse down, then forgot about it for a few months. Then I found the sheet of paper on the floor in the garage and wrote the rest of the song in about fifteen minutes, it just came rushing out complete.” Martin Aucoin came up with a stark piano intro that sets up the song perfectly for what is to come. Throughout the song, Martin plays piano and Leslie organ and keeps the mood just the right atmosphere. Rock meets Nashville here. Bruce McCarthy’s drums are so perfect and right; you almost forget they are playing.

“River Moon” is a hopeless romantic song with a chunky rhythm. A man stands on a bridge not knowing whether love can save him or if he should just jump in. “We were on one of those old bridges in Paris looking at the moon and the thought occurred to me. I scribbled down a few verses on the plane going home and finished it in between sessions in the studio. “Russell Gray’s amazing guitar intro sets up the song to just take off. He brought something different to each of the songs on the album. The man possesses an inexhaustible repertoire of guitar ideas and riffs.

“Crazy Town” is almost straight-ahead Rock and Roll about a mining town where Bob worked underground a driller while passing through. It says even when things are crazy around you and you wonder what you’re in the middle of, it’s still one hell of a good time…and getting out of town in a hurry will always be a fun thing to do. “One of the first songs I wrote and I spent months working it out. When we recorded it, I was just fooling around with the spoken part in the intro but Brett liked it and Mark got the band to play a great intro under it.” “ I asked Steve Zsirai for a bass solo, not heard too often in pop songs and he nailed it.

The song “Happy Birthday, My Friend” was written when Bob heard about a friend who passed away that he hadn’t seen in years and got him thinking about how the people you meet become part of the refrain of your life with the line “time goes by, we couldn’t change it if we tried, Happy Birthday, my friend.” “The song started with just a line, and I just kind of made it up as we recorded the scratch tracks in the studio.”

The song “It’s About Time” talks about a character who is looking at all the things it is now time to do, whatever the consequences.” It’s never clear whether he will actually act upon any of these conclusions he appears to reach. This song is where Steve’s bass really soars. It is so smooth and so subtle, it carries the song along on a wave of almost subterranean sounds. In the intro it tastes like drinking 40-year-old Scotch. Then Russell lays down a tremolo-laced Telecaster sound that frames the verses all the way through. The back-up vocals by Mia Sheard are angelic all the way through the track.”

“When This Day Is Done” is a melancholy ballad about how when all is done, what counts is the unwavering support you can count on from someone who loves you. It is stronger than steel and, when you find it, more precious than diamonds. “The song started on the plane going to my mother-in-law’s funeral. Lines flew around in my head the whole time as thoughts do in emotional times like those. It took a long time to finish but when it was done I thought I had something special. “

“The Day You Said Goodbye” has a character remembering the day a lover walked out the door and wonders if the loss was felt equally. People have said the song sounds like someone was sitting on a bar stool beside them telling a story. Others have said, there is not one person in the world who has not had this happen to them. “This song was torture to write. Over and over it changed. Keys, rhythms, you name it. I’m still not sure I got it right and it will probably be different each time I play it.

”Finally “Jerusalem”. A song about how the world is burning and blowing up and there is some place we can sail to get away. “As ominous as the song seemed, Russell Gray cooked up an arrangement to it that turned it into an island, calypso, reggae kind of thing that really jumps up and down. At the end of the song, the band just kept on jamming and the way Steve Zsirai on bass kept riffing back and forth with Bruce McCarthy on drums was just crazy and under it Russell kept things going with a solid guitar rhythm. Pure magic. Mark Nakamura was jumping up and down in the control room, loving it and urging them to keep going. Glad he did.