The Time for Us, feat. Ray Yslas
Backstory | Credits | Lyrics | Music Links | Video
It is with no small amount of trepidation that I post this song. In so many ways it’s not from my canon of usual activities, but there is a backstory that will make sense of it for you so I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read the following before you play the video.
Original Performance Video
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Alternate Video
Backstory:
This Goes Way Back:
I had wonderful high school years. I was super-involved in music and in student government and had so many wonderful friendships. In my senior year I was elected Student Body President and then was chosen to give the graduation speech as was my dear friend Debi Meyer (Debi Cox). We decided to speak together, rather than separately, and we had a blast coming up with a rousing speech as a team. “It’s better to burn out than to fade away!” we extolled at the end. The rest of the speech is lost to the mists of time, I think, but I made the audacious decision to write and sing a song, for my graduating class, as part of that speech. Audacious, because although I was singing a lot at the time, I was neither a songwriter nor a pianist, and yet I chose to accompany myself at the piano. Gulp!
The Nightmare;
Musicians have a standard nightmare. We’ve all dreamt it at one time or another (along with that one where you’re naked on stage). It’s standard professional anxiety psychology and goes like this: You’re on stage. It’s a gorgeous concert hall and all eyes are on you. The audience is beautifully dressed and looking up at you, expectantly, waiting for something amazing to happen. You bow, accept their generous applause gracefully and then you sit down at the piano to perform.
“Wait… PIANO?
Oh S%!T!!!
I don’t play the PIANO!!!!!!!!!!!”
Yes. I lived that, for real, at my own graduation ceremony. And I brought it on myself! I hope I looked confident in the moment, but inside I was losing my senses. Abject fear erased my memories and I simply don’t remember much of the event but I *think* it went ok. If it had been a disaster I would definitely remember THAT until my dying day. The one thing I do know is that I practiced that piano part so damned many times, so thoroughly, that I can still play every note all these years later. THAT is the brain being told “This is important, remember it!”
Not Hard Choices:
One other reason I wanted to record this song was that, and don’t judge, my parents weren’t at my graduation. They have never heard this song. Now, before you go calling anyone any names, please understand that it was actually my choice, or should I say “our choice” because I graduated in the same class as my brother Julian. Our parents finished their semester teaching at Washington State University a full month before our high school finished for the year. They tended to spend their summers leading tours in Europe and that summer was no exception. So that year they made an offer that Julian and I could not refuse. Either they could buy tickets back to the US, mid tour, to come to our graduation, or Julian and I could use those tickets to go to Greece after graduation. Greece was amazing.
Jump to the Present:
This year my oldest son (one of four!) graduated from high school which brought up all kinds of memories of my senior year. Devin’s senior year was marred by the flaming garbage barge that was the Spring of 2020, so he missed out on some of the fun trappings of a traditional graduation. But he seemed content to have what felt like an early release to the long summer that followed. It was during this time that I started to think about making a recording of this song that had never really left my head. And then, one day, I was putting away some papers and randomly came across the handwritten lyrics of the song. I don’t think I’ve seen that sheet of paper for 25 years, and yet there it was, placed in the completely wrong folder, looking up at me knowingly. I took the Universe’s direction and got to work recording the song, for me, for my graduating class, for my son, and for all of the graduates of the class of 2020 who will have quite a story to tell of their senior year.
Recording:
I started by recording the piano part and played it exactly as I did on that graduation stage. I added bass, drums, guitar and even a pair of flute parts in a nod to my high school woodwind playing days. When I got down to recording the vocals, I realized that my voice must have been a bit higher when I was 17… I guess I could have lowered the key, but I persevered and did a few more vocal re-takes than a pro, in the right key, would have needed to. Lol. I don’t sing much these days, and it shows, but I had to do this one myself.
The Guest Artist:
I tried engineering some percussion parts. But despite having some excellent sound libraries, nothing sounded any good so I called my brother-in-arms, Ramon Yslas, and asked him to record a pass on the song. Ray is in the band Chicago, maybe you’ve heard of them, and has an outrageous resume of hyper-professional music work (J-Lo, Christina Aguilera, Marcus Miller, David Sanborn). He’s a TOTAL bad-ass (and a GREAT guy!) and sent back not just one percussion track but FIVE. A percussion tour-de-force that changed the essence of the recording and made me re-evaluate some of my more, shall we say, “loose” recorded parts. Thank you, my brother!
Video:
I ran a video camera during a lot of the takes (as one does these days), just in case, and then I decided to make the video that you see here. I had thought about doing a video with a bunch of pictures from high school, but honestly I don’t have very many of those, and the ones I have are pretty hilariously awful, so you’re all stuck with my older-but-wiser mug instead. Apologies.
A Song I Wrote in High School? Is that a Good Idea?
I actually like the song I wrote when I was 17. It’s more harmonically complex than I’d expect from my young self, and I was able to add a little bit of my adult-musician self to the mix without changing that the essence of the track. The piano, the vocals, the lyrics, are exactly what I performed all those years ago.
This summer-time project brought back a lot of wonderful memories “of sun-filled days” and I realize I miss a lot of my old friends. So, I’m putting this out into the web-o-sphere with the hope that a brings a smile to a few faces, and stirs up some good memories as it has done for me.
Backstory | Credits | Lyrics | Music Links | Video
Credits:
Composer: Zac Matthews
Publisher: Zacmatt Music
Label: VRAX Productions
Recorded at: The Deck, Glendale, CA
Produced and Engineered: Zac Matthews
Percussion parts: Ramon Yslas
All other parts: Zac Matthews
Backstory | Credits | Lyrics | Music Links | Video
Lyrics
All the years that we have shared
The time we spent together that we won’t forget
Our stories tell of sun-filled days
We reminisce before we go our separate ways
And now the time for us to go
To face a new world that we just don’t know
And now the moment has arrived
The time for us to take our wings and fly
And as we part, tears in our eyes
Trying not to think of lonely tears that we might cry
We start to look ahead in time
Hoping success and happiness is what we’ll find
And now the time for us to go
To face a new world that we just don’t know
And now the moment has arrived
The time for us to take our wings and fly
Then off we go, new life begins
Encountering hidden doors that soon will let us in
A year is born, we start again
Like a child making friends the cycle there begins
And now the time for us to go
To face a new world that we just don’t know
And now the moment has arrived
The time for us to take our wings and fly