Song Profiles

Song title: Battle for Infinite Time
From the album: A Broke Machine

A few months ago I went to a big industry party in Los Angeles where I was introduced to somebody who is a whoop-dee-doo to about 25 people on the planet. The friend who introduced me explained that I was a singer-songwriter who wrote "spacey" music. And I was all, "What? Spacey music, really?" Blah blah blah and the conversation puddled into something forgettable, except the spacey comment, which bothered me.

There's a strong inclination that artists need to be misunderstood in order to be deep and meaningful. "Spacey" seems like a way of saying this, only with a derogatory slant. I don't think my friend meant to insult me, but as I bristled at his description, I realized his comment revealed my own prejudice about artists. After all, what's so terrible about spacey? Isn't it better than saying I write terrible music? Or boring music? Or even...nice music? Shoot, spacey is a downright compliment in comparison. The problem was that I didn't know why he used that word to describe me.

And then I sat down to write this song profile for Battle for Infinite Time. Wait. Oh yeah. My big disco song about outer space. I can see where he thinks I'm spacey, especially if he's heard this song, which he has.

Back up.

{

Did I just say disco?

Yes.

Did I really mean disco?

I'm not saying you should dance to it in a polyester leisure suit or that you should dance to it at all, but, yes.

}

So now I'm satisfied that when he called my music spacey, he was really only talking about this song, and I agree. I wrote Battle after I read "Cosmicomics" by Italo Calvino and was inspired to explore the swirling metaphor of the universe. The song is a direct response to the short story "A Sign in Space". Read the story. It's beautiful. Actually, read the whole book.

Song Trivia: The title did not appear in the lyrics at all until two days before it was sent to the mixer. At that point, feeling the song was somehow unfinished, I pulled out the microphone and surprised myself when I heard the words "so we battle for infinite time" tumble out of my mouth. I love it when that happens.

Terami
December 2008