Stu's Personal Favorites

Hellilujah This version of this song sounds amazing until the chorus comes in. I recommend listening only to the verses on this. There is another, completely different version of this song that I like much better, but that will have to wait for the world...

Elizabeth Ascends I've always liked this song, but for some reason I don't play it at shows and I've never put it on an album. It's some kind of song I like a lot, and yet never quite settle in with as part of my repertoire. I dunno why.

Smoke What's cool here (to me, anyway) is that you can hear how I was experimenting with the lyrics and parts. This is an early version of Smoke, when I was still working on the lyrics and melody. I'm literally just making things up as I sing, repeating my wife's name and my (at this time unborn, not-even-yet-conceived) daughter's name over and over. HA! I guess it called her out, cuz she showed up shortly there after. In fact, my (now) wife and I had only been on one date at this point. But you know what you know...

Karma Pyre I'm also nuts for this version. It's basically a completely different song than the rewritten version we put on the album. I had three or four versions of this song going at one time, the one that ended up on the album, and the one we have here are my favs. I'm crazy about my vocals on this version, and also the weird little "bell" sound effects i was using on the guitar part. They sound so wet and slinky. Every time I hear this version I cry. Just kidding, but I do turn it way up. I don't believe I've ever told anyone besides Tripp and Alex this, but this song was inspired by The American Book Of The Dead, by E.J. Gold (a manual for navigating the bardo). And if you want to have fun, read that book and then watch Mulholland Drive. Notice anything????? P.S. David Lynch, CALL ME.

Ara Belle This is my favorite version of this song. It features a drum loop, some spacy synth dropped back, and some very cool vocal parts that I was only able to get after keeping myself up all night and letting my voice get way, way relaxed. One of my favorite vocal takes ever! This is a much longer version of the song...

Let's Go Broke in Rock 'n Roll Although this never would have worked with our vision of Bell, it's a fun song.