Some of you have written to me wanting to know what a particular song means. One good use of this newsletter would be to tell you all what the songs mean (at least to me) as well as give some other comments about how they were written and anything else interesting. This issue will continue to look at the songs off the Fireaxe CD "A Dream of Death" with the third and fourth tracks, "The New God" and "Another Dream".

The New God. Dreams are sold on a daily basis. Advertising is all about selling a dream. Ads are often little dreams which try to convince you that your self image, life satisfaction, or empowerment will be greatly improved by buying the product. They aren't all lies, but the advertisers care little about results. Sales are the most important thing. So if they can convince someone that their product has improved that person's life it matters little what has actually occurred.

The New God doesn't deal with the little dreams, it deals with the big dreams, and there is little difference between little dreams and big dreams other than the magnitude. Whereas little dreams are like a new car which makes you feel young and agile when you drive it, or like a soft drink which makes you feel vibrant and alive when you drink it, big dreams seek to make you feel like you have a purpose in life and try to permeate every fiber of your being. Just like the little dreams, results are unimportant in big dreams. If you can be convinced that the dream has improved your life you will keep chasing it. And just like the little dreams where you can't get your money back when your life doesn't improve, big dreams offer no refunds either, only instead of being out a few dollars when they let you down, you're out a considerable chunk of your life.

"The New God" attacks three such big dreams. I use the term "god" to refer to the big dream since I see little difference between them in practice. The god of many religions is an imaginary being in the sky who the believer must appease to find salvation. If you follow the god's rules then you receive this wondrous reward. The same basic theme works for other big dreams. If you jump through all these hoops, then someday you will benefit greatly. If course, there are no guarantees, and often your chances of getting your reward are very slim if not zero altogether. But as long as you have hope, you will keep chasing the dream.

To capture this basic theme I needed an energetic set of rhythms that built to a peak and then collapsed back down to where it began. This flow symbolizes the stages of the dream; the excitement at inception, the glory of embracing it, and the disappointment of seeing it let you down. Each of the three sections of the song starts off with a heavy, blues style riff, with each line ending in a quick guitar solo that increases the tension in the song. The feel of the song smacks of grim determination as the protagonist tells of his grand ambitions. The second verse of each section builds up to the powerful chorus which echoes the theme of each of the dreams. The third verse descends into frustration and anger, and the end of each section reaches a low point where the protagonist swears that he won't be fooled again and reloads to pursue the next new dream.

The first dream in "The New God" is religion. I've personally never been a convert to any religion like how the song goes. I fell out of belief in my religion of upbringing years ago and never looked back. But I recall having the following experience which I've learned is surprisingly common:

"Then one day I was reading in the bible.
I came upon a passage that meant so much to me.
The way it made me feel was truly divine.
I had seen the truth and it had set me free."

For me the feeling didn't last long, but I've heard the stories of many who were caught up in the dream of heaven only to have it all come crashing down when they realized that it was far from rational. Your reward never has to be delivered. There's no proof of anyone ever being saved, and you'll be dead before you know that what you believed your whole life was a lie.

The second dream in "The New God" is one I did buy into for a while. When you get hired out of school and someone sticks that first big paycheck in your hand you tend to become a believer pretty fast, only this time instead of following a god's rules to be saved, you work your ass off for promotions and more money. You get hooked on the dream of being the boss someday, of having a big salary, and of having a bunch of people working under you. You believe that you'll have the tools to do what you want to do but that never seems to happen. To get ahead you have to do what others want, not what you want. You sell out to their desires ever so slowly until one day you're far away from the person you wanted to become. And just like the dream of salvation, the reward never has to be delivered. Although few have become rich, the vast majority remain relatively poor with others enjoying the fruits of their labors.

The third dream in "The New God" is the hardest one for many to swallow. The few rebels who see through the bullshit dreams of others will often get caught up in a dream of their own making. They seek their own path to success and put a lot of their own blood, sweat and tears into the attempt to get there. The dream of self driven success is still just an empty promise made to one's self in the hopes that it is not empty. I'm as familiar with that process as anyone. I've built hundreds of dreams for myself in my lifetime and worked hard to make them come true. In the beginning Fireaxe was just another one of those dreams, but that was back in the days when my goal was rock super-stardom, which is bullshit in and of itself. But it was the image of the money, fame, and the rock-n-roll lifestyle that kept me practicing, playing, and trying to make myself better than I was the day before. Was the huge investment worth it? I would say no. I do enjoy playing and making CDs, but it so often seems that what I get out of it is not enough compared to what goes into it. That probably surprises a lot of you, but it's how I feel.

It was eerie how during the arduous and frustrating process of trying to get my recordings to measure up to modern music production standards the whole process was so much like what I had written:

"I need this and I need that,
and I need someone to show me where it's at.
One more step, one more try,
one more change and I'll be ready to fly."

I know now that if I had been doing it all clinging to the dream of having the CD launch my music career that I would have been gravely disappointed. There's no telling how many hours I would have spent trying to improve the CD or how much money I would have invested in the project. Being realistic about things helped me out a lot, but it was hard to resist the siren's call of the dream.

I know a lot of people would raise issue with me about the theme of "The New God". I seem to be saying that all dreams are bullshit and that everyone who believes in one is a deluded fool. To them all I can say is "hear me out and give my perspective a chance". If the world is really as I make it out to be in "A Dream of Death" would you be willing to accept it? Could you believe that all our hopes and dreams are merely shields that keep us from seeing a reality which is too heartless and cruel to bear? And if you can't accept it, doesn't that begin to prove my point?

Another Dream. This theme of this song is very similar to "The New God" but told with a completely different emotional perspective. In both songs the protagonist struggles with dreams. Dreams offer the promise of a glorious future and spur him on, but they also let him down with crushing defeats. In "The New God" the protagonist is always pressing onward towards the goals of the dream. It is energetic and captures both excitement and anger. In "Another Dream" the protagonist is coming to the revelation that dreams are both hope and despair and that you can't have one without the other. His energy drains away, leaving him to lament the loss of hope and to sink deeply into depression.

The opening acappella sets the mood for the song. The vocals start high and descend, reflecting the collapse of the dream. The music begins and is slow and empty with the vocals complimenting the morose tone. The chorus kicks in with distorted guitars which symbolize the intensity of the pain that the Protagonist is suffering through. It recedes only to build once again in the final chorus. The solos in the song are among my favorites. They aren't fast or difficult or breathtaking, but I feel that they capture the mood perfectly. Everything builds to the final chorus. The lyrics capture the duality of dreams, the promise and the pain, the hope and the tragedy. The verses trade back and forth, fusing the two ideas into one:

"Another dream that ends in pain,
another dream that keeps me sane,
another dream that lets me go so far away.
Another dream that kills the light,
another dream dispels the night,
another dream arrives in time to save the day."

In the final lament the protagonist declares that dreams are lies. They promise hope but deliver despair.

To be honest, some dreams do come true. Some people live out their dreams and never experience any downside to believing in them. They are the lucky few. And a lot of small dreams do come true for a lot of us which keeps us pursuing other dreams. I would have to say that recording the CD "A Dream of Death" was a dream come true since it was something I always wanted to accomplish. So where do I get off writing a song that says that all dreams are lies?

First of all, keep in mind that the story is being told from the perspective of the protagonist. He reaches the conclusion that all dreams are false and that idea propels him through the rest of the story. For the protagonist, every dream he believed in collapsed into a pile of rubble and left him in more pain than before. For him, dreams were the only escape from a reality of pain and suffering, but as his dreams failed one after the other, his hope for the future grew smaller and his pain in the present grew larger. Not everyone descends into inescapable despair, if we did then the world would be a lot worse than it is. Some people live their dreams, some keep chasing them, and some resign themselves to their lot in life. But there are some people who discover that they cannot live within the system any longer and they break away from it for good. They see no choice but to destroy what has brought them so much pain. "A Dream of Death" is the story of one such person.

(to be continued)