I’ve decided to call my sixth CD:
Lights Over The Bar

Lights Over The Bar Was Released on March 22, 2010 and is for sale at CD Baby, iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster and other digital music outlets.

There’s a metaphorical reason as well as a literal reason for the name.

I’ve literally sat at many bars in my life, too many to name. I’ve had some of my most intense discussions, political and otherwise, in those places. I think if sane people sat at a bar and discussed their problems over a couple of cold brews (not too many), problems may be able to be solved.

The metaphor is the bar, the standard to which we hold ourselves. We are still at war. Young men and women are still killing and dying because of phantom weapons of mass destruction and meetings not held between Al Qaeda operatives and Iraqi government officials, all in a country that never did a thing to The Former United States of America.

We need to set the bar higher, obviously, and when we’ve got it set just right, we’ll see that there is light over that bar.

I once wrote that Lights Over The Bar does have far reaching potential and I’ve been happy with the response.

I’ve hoped, since I first wrote the song, that “Peace Is Possible” would potentially become the mantra for those of us who want to see legally ordered hits on “our enemies” come to an end. Maybe it's a reach, but I still hope that it can become to peace activists of today what Lennon’s “Give Peace A Chance” was for those who pursued that very same goal when this nation and North Vietnam were hurling death at one another. Musically, the song has gone through many metamorphoses ranging from an attempt at RAP to its present presentation as a reggae piece.

The expression “Peace Is Possible” is the email signature of one of the members of The Mount Diablo Peace Center. So the title belongs to Mary Alice O’Connor who, along with the other members of the MtDPC, works 24/7 to make peace possible.

I wouldn’t presume to possess even a fraction of John Lennon’s talent. I do think that “Peace Is Possible”, if taken, propagated and broadcast seriously, can clearly elucidate just how easily peace can be effectuated. It’s a powerful and even hope filled message.

I collaborated on two of the songs on Lights Over The Bar. I wrote the music for the song “Crossroad Bridge #3” while Jim Bush, a very good poet and regular contributor to OpEdNews, wrote the lyrics.

I also wrote the music which accompanies the poignant lyrics in the song “Streets Of Eden”. Those lyrics were written by a very talented English poet named Alan Hodgson. I fervently hope that “Streets Of Eden” can be a classic. It reads like a classic and even sounds like a classic, if I may say so myself.

More importantly, “Streets Of Eden” is a song with which many of us who lived during the “good old days” can identify. Those were the days that people like Franklin Delano Roosevelt made possible by reminding us that America is supposed to be, as brilliant radio host Thom Hartmann likes to say, a “we” society, not a “me” society. I know that many of us share Alan’s desire for a time when disagreement will merely consist of deciding on the most socially effective way for us to take care of society’s denizens and earth’s dwindling resources.

“Why Don’t We Go” is war as perceived by a soldier written by me, a person who never was a soldier. Yet, I hope that, for those military personnel who don’t already embrace them, the lyrics to this song will cause a pause and serious introspection about the actions they take and if it really makes sense to be following through on those actions.

Lights Over The Bar is not a theme CD. Not all of the songs are about society and its relationship to greed, war and apathy. There are four songs on the CD which deal with more personal experiences. People should be able to relate to the situations which “Ellen”, “Open Up To Colors”, “Glad To Be Home” and “The Same Way” address.

Of course, I hope that you enjoy all of the music on Lights Over The Bar. I hope that you’ll tell friends and family alike about the CD so that they can get themselves a copy and enjoy the music as well. I’d like you, though, while you’re enjoying the music, to listen clearly not only to the social messages contained in the album, but to the passion with which they’re expressed.

I've definitely decided to take these thoughts and place them in the Essays, Letters, Opinions section of this site. I’m sure that the narrative will wind up on my blog as well as at OpEdNews. How long it will take me to accomplish that feat is a question of great concern, especially for me.

Since recording and distributing Lights Over The Bar, I seemed to have become a bit more prolific. The muse, as well as some friends, has been very good to me.

After playing with numerous possible titles for album number seven, I finally decided to rip-off Neil Young and call it Young Man (look at my life).

Neil Young is 64 years old. In 2006, he saw what Cheney’s Regime was doing to America and its Constitution and, although he is Canadian, he needed to speak out. That’s when he released his CD Living With War.

It’s also when he became involved in setting up the web site Living With War Today.

There was a concern at the time that no one was writing music to address the crimes that were being committed by The Regime. Young’s Living With War Today web site put that concern to rest as over 3,000 songs protesting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were published on that site. Two songs from my album Flameland, “Casey’s Song” and “Soldiers Of Peace”, were part of that list.

I just turned 60. I was in my twenties when four students were needlessly and, without provocation, gunned down at Kent State University, simply because they were protesting the fact that Americans were being forced to go to Vietnam to fight a war that made no sense and was also illegal. I saw the same things that Young saw, but Young was fortunate enough to have his music played throughout the world. Although I was writing music and poetry which pointed to the zeitgeist of the time; the continuous slaughter in Vietnam; those who attempted to keep the Jim Crowe laws in place, thus stopping people of color from enjoying all of the freedoms that America has to offer; lies told by Presidents Johnson and Nixon; the assassinations of prominent people who spoke out against these injustices such as Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., I wasn’t fortunate enough to receive the support needed for my words to be heard.

I write here about age to demonstrate that, like Young’s passion for peace and justice, my passion has followed me throughout my life and has never diminished. This is why I took Young’s song “Old Man” and turned it around in titling my latest CD.

In Young’s original recording of “Old Man”, Young tells the old man that “I’m a lot like you were.” Young noted in the song that he was 24, but knew that there would be “so much more” happening in his future.

He was right and he’s still writing about it. However, although I never gained Young’s stature or prominence, I’ve never stopped writing about the injustices in the world.

When I was a young man, I hoped that people would hear my words and I hoped that I could add my voice, in a way in which it would be heard, to the voices speaking out against social injustice.

It’s no longer about gaining the kind of fame that Neil Young gained and especially not about making money. I’ve always had an innate need to write about what I see and how I feel about it. I do this as a contributing editor at OpEdNews, as a published poet and as a songwriter.

Young Man is an invitation to the crowd that’s been intercepted by consumerism to become activists for peace and justice while the world becomes the possession of its wealthiest inhabitants. There’s a so-called activist movement today, but the world needs one that actually stands for something, something positive and something that will help humanity, not just human beings.

Young Man isn’t only about social injustice. I’ve always liked writing songs about romantic relationships as well. I’m especially excited that my youngest daughter, Leyna, shares this CD with her father. Leyna Bonanno wrote “my lost love” and performs it beautifully on this album.

Another song of romance and hope is ““today”, a song I wrote for my oldest daughter, Jessica, and performed at her wedding.

“eyes” is dedicated to my wife, Tina, who's the main reason for Young Man’s outstanding album art.

The rest of the CD deals with issues that concern all of us. “in the land of the free” is a song about the gung-ho outlook that many young members of the military seem to carry with them into war. There’s reference to torture in “in the land of the free”, but there’s more than a reference to reality in the song as well.

“denial” might be as close as I’ll ever get to RAP or spoken songs. It is, in fact, a spoken song. Deny is also what the government of what I refer to as the Former United States of America seems to do best.

There are some songs that have been recorded throughout the years that I’ve always loved to sing, for one reason or another. One of the songs was covered on my album “From The Heart. It’s the Ronettes song “Be My Baby”.

Another song that I love to sing is “joe hill”, a song written in 1936 in support of the American labor movement. Joan Baez sang it at Woodstock and it has stuck with me since 1969. There’s not only no labor movement in America today, there seems to be an almost aggressive anti-labor movement. Even workers make excuses for the Corporatists in America. Those who work for the private sector complain that those who work for the government are overcompensated. Many non-union workers complain that union workers, even in the private sector, such as the automobile industry, are overcompensated.

“joe hill” barely touches on what the early labor movement in The United States had to go through to get such luxuries as the eight hour day, but it does touch on it. I’ve included “joe hill” in Young Man in the hopes that those who are complaining that the multimillionaires are paying union workers too much will see the real problem, the Corporatists and multimillionaires who pay private sector workers too little. That is, of course, if the multimillionaires are kind enough to Americans to keep their jobs in America. Hopefully, a light will shine upon American workers and those workers, instead of defending the Corporatists who are keeping them down, will rise up once again and demand what is rightfully theirs.

Of the seven CDs I’ve produced thus far, Young Man contains the fewest number of songs which I wrote alone. “joe hill” and “my lost love” have already been mentioned. I also worked with two extremely talented lyricists on the CD.

Jamie Redhead, from Manchester in the UK, wrote some outrageous lyrics for “no man’s land”, “shock and awe” and “storm front”. These lyrics are filled with passion and putting music to them was a labor of love

I worked with Jim Bush on my CD “Lights Over The Bar in putting music to Bush’s “Crossroad Bridge #3” lyrics and I’ve had the same honor to write the music for Jim’s song “blackwater bullies” on Young Man. “Crossroad Bridge #3” was poetry written in free verse and it was a challenge for me, one that I think was successful. “blackwater bullies”, which tries to explain the psyche of people who would work for mercenary corporations such as the corporation formerly known as Blackwater, lends itself to country rock and I really had fun filling out that song.

Whether or not Young Man sells a lot of copies or songs from the CD are prolifically downloaded, I hope that someone - anyone - who listens to it will act.

I extend my sincerest thanks to Rights Flow, Inc. for helping me obtain mechanical licenses for “Old Man” and “Joe Hill”.

I think the muse was just waiting me to come up with the very last song for my eighth CD. Well, whatever was blocking that process was removed and voila, Haven't We Met? has now been published.