WHEN YOU'RE NOT WITH ME -- "I don't want to say 'This is about this person or that person.' The songs on this album span such a long period of time they are probably about a half dozen relationships. More than these songs being about anyone, for the most part I hope they are appreciated by the listener as part of their life so it becomes a more personal experience for them, rather than 'Oh, who did he write that about?' or 'What's going on in his life?' But I want these songs to still reflect emotion and sentiment that should be valid to anyone involved in a mature, romantic situation. Most of them are very hopeful. 'Drawing Pictures' (track 9) is sad, but I wrote it when I was 21. The songs are very hopeful about the nature of relationships. "When You're Not With Me" feels like a George Harrison kind of Beatles thing to me, though nobody else may get that. A lot of songs reflect my earliest influences, like (The Byrds') Gene Clark ('Full Circle'). That was conscious, my doing as a producer."

FULL CIRCLE -- "That song first appeared on the Byrds reunion album in '73 and has always touched me. It's one of my favorite tunes. It's not well known...it's one of their more obscure songs but I thought it had such a great thing happening in the vocals especially. The verse was written in one key and the chorus steps up to the subdominant. It's so uplifting and I like what the song says. It's a great philosophical song about living through life and all it has to show you, because it's going to keep coming around."

REASON TO RUN -- "Usually in life, you have people that leave and people who are left. They are patterns that some repeat for whatever reason. This is a song about that impulse, not about me. It's about someone I knew getting into a relationship and when it got time to get serious and committed, they would consciously leave and go to another partner until it got close to the same point. Musically, I think there is a Buffalo Springfield/Crazy Horse kind of feel. I used my old Gretsch (guitar) all over this record. I hadn't done that in a long time."

ONCE IN LOVE -- "This song was written in 1982 when I was in the middle of doing Innocent Age, or just after it, which is the reason it feels very similar to that period. It's advice to the lovelorn (he laughs). A friend of mine's little sister was in college and had just gotten her heart broken for the first time. She asked me, like I'm some great sage (he laughs again), 'What the hell is this about?' I told her, 'I know it hurts now, but you will get over it and be fine.' This was written for anybody who gets hurt and it doesn't work out like they expected, which probably is most people. It's done with doubled acoustic guitars. I initially was going to do a single vocal without harmonies, but it was screaming for those other two parts."

WHISPERS IN THE WIND -- "It was written for a lady, probably in '85. It was a very brief, very romantic situation. The nature of that relationship felt to me like an old Gordon Lightfoot song like 'Softly She Comes.' Gordon wrote a lot of that stuff: great, mysterious women would show up in the middle of the night and disappear. Lightfoot is one of my greatest influences. I admire his songwriting. Melodically and lyrically, this is a tribute to Lightfoot."

THIS HEART -- "It's a very positive song. People should be able to go on and improve in their life. I want to encourage people that, no matter what life dishes out, you've got to go on and it gets better. That's what this song is about. It evolved from the mid-'90s to the late '90s."

REACH HAVEN POSTCARD -- "It's a very pretty little acoustic tune. I love the imagery in it, one of those cinematic songs where you can really see a physical place. I was sitting on an island writing the song, looking at my surroundings and thinking, 'Here I am and this is what is going on tonight.' What I like about the imagery of this song, more than anything, is that it's a rather clever little item to do as a post card. The tritest thing to write on a post card is 'Wish you were here.' I like how I wove that in. When you're not with someone you love, the natural thing is to say 'Wish you were here.' "

DRAWING PICTURES -- "Sometimes a song confirms why it is I should be doing this. This is very mature stuff by someone who at the time (age 21) had never been in a serious relationship. I do find the song just as relevant now as when it was written. I wrote it in '72 or '73 probably. This CD starts off like that period, so I thought, 'Why not bring a song from that time?' I always loved 'Drawing Pictures.' It was one of those songs that kept getting pushed aside. Irving Azoff, my manager at the time, used to love it and would say, 'You've got to put this on that album.' But for one reason or another through the years I didn't. Finally 30 years later, this beautiful song made it to an album. I don't know who it was written for or about, or where I was when I wrote it. I honestly don't remember. But it was a song always there that kept saying, 'Hey, don't forget about me.' "

ICARUS ASCENDING -- "This is the high water mark of this record for me. This is one of the most recent, a very important song to me as a songwriter. It's a statement of my personal philosophy of being an artist. It does give hope for those who are willing to plumb the depths of individualism in any endeavor, in any art. The gift of art is an incredible blessing from the creator. I believe that. It's not an easy life, not a popular choice to make if you want to be everybody's friend. You have to listen to that unwavering voice that says, 'You're special, but it's not going to be easy.' It will be very difficult, but if you choose to pursue it unfailingly, I believe you will be greatly rewarded in a way people who are not given this creative spark will ever understand. It's perhaps as close as I will ever come to really expressing my core philosophy. I'm not talking financial here, but spiritual rewards. Many great artists never realized financial rewards. This is a song to those artists, more than someone like me, who has had every reward I can possibly think of. So many great artists struggled all their lives and will never see the perks. This song says you have to have enormous courage to follow the muse and that's Icarus. The Greek story is one of the great stories of optimism and foolishness, that he would make wax wings to fly to the sun. But as an artist you've got to be fearless and keep flying to the sun even though you know you might crash. ' There is a gamble in each proud act of flight' is one of the best lines I've ever written."

EARTH ANTHEM -- "This album is full of hope. My core philosophy about the nature and importance of art is in 'Icarus Ascending,' and 'Earth Anthem' represents the nature of my own being to protect and preserve and love nature. I still want to make sure people are reminded they have a sacred duty as the human species to be caretakers of this planet. Bill Martin wrote this in the mid-60s. It is one of the first environmental songs I can remember. It was on a Turtles album. Howard (Kaylan) and Mark (Volman) (of the Turtles) did this song with the Turtles in '65 -'66, on an album called Battle of the Bands, in which the Turtles did songs as different bands. Mark Volman used to be a neighbor of mine when I lived up in Laurel Canyon in L.A. I've sung this Bill Martin song at political rallies through the years. It did it at the 'No Nukes' concert in Washington, D.C., in 1980, on the Capitol steps. It's a very inspirational song."