LYRICS | ALBUM COVER | THEMATIC OVERVIEW | SONG-BY-SONG COMMENTARY
Released in June of 2003, Make Right the Time is Danny's second studio production, and third album in total. Here's what Danny has to say about it:
"When I started making this album -- I looked at the pile of songs I had to pick through -- especially the more recent tracks -- and it looked to me like this was gonna be a fairly political album. Which, in a sense, is true of the way things turned out.
Problem is, when I started telling people I was making a political album, it didn't sound right. It isn't right. It's taken me awhile to figure out why that is, exactly.
It's cause my sense of politics is very personal. It's not about swashbuckling ideologies. It's about each of our personal histories, our psychological idiosyncrasies and our spiritual leanings all coming to together to inform our sense of politics -- our sense of how the world should run, or be run.
So, yes, this album is about the state of the world, the way I see it. These Post 9/11 times have tumultuous, heartbreaking, infuriating, terrifying, exhausting. all these things. I think we can all agree with these things.That's 99% of what this record is about . . . it's about living through times that are so emotionally complicated that it takes a pile of songs (and many, still, I haven't written) just to wrap my own brain around my own feelings.
And I have some of my own ideas about what might help fix some of our problems, and I explore some of those thoughts in some of these songs. But they're certainly not trying to impart some sort of agenda. I don't even think these songs and ideas are put into the world to be agreed with, or disagreed with. They're the end product of my ruminations over the last couple years. That's it. Just like when my mind is preoccupied with thoughts of a lover, it churns out a love song. The world's weighed heavy on my mind the last couple years -- so my mind chewed on things for awhile and spit out Make Right the Time.
It's a political collection of tunes. And a personal one. And a spiritual one.
So, there you go.
SONG-BY-SONG COMMENTARY
click each song title to read lyrics1. Make Right the Time - part i
The title track(s) to this album form bookends -- the first three verses introduce the album, and the last three verses conclude it. I picked this song as the title track because I think it bridges the personal and the political. It's about how short life is, and how we owe it to our lives to be as vivacious and compassionate as we can. It's about making each moment of time precious -- while trying to make the world right. You know, fruity new age folky pop-sprituality bullshit. But with nice harmonies.
2. Tick Tock
I wrote this song about a month after September 11th. It's a creepy song about psychological warfare.
3. Today
This song was written in the midst of existential crisis while staying at my folks house (maybe too long) over the holidays. It's about trying to find value in what you do, and the way you spend your time. And about finding that value within the fabric of your relationships.
4. Sunny Days
This song was written right after I decided to move back to Austin -- and after a string a torturously wonderful kindnesses and beautiful sunny days in Charlottesville. Relentless, really. It's a song about taking things for granted, maybe.
5. Cleopatra
Cleopatra is the story of a man and woman meeting at a bar . . . and falling into a little game by which they make up lives for themselves that are more interesting than their real ones. I think there's sparks between these two. But, sadly, Cleopatra panics and flees when she realizes that, quite by accident, there's something real going on between them.
This song contains three little snapshot vignettes of trying circumstances. Each, rescued by the family.
7. The Winds
This is a wedding song . . . a song of partnership.
This song is an invitation to a party somewhere in the backwoods where only individuals are invited. No organizations. No institutions. No dogmas. Just people.
9. Closing Time
Closing Time is a quick appraisal of the spiritual state of the world, as I saw it, one particular day in late 2002.
10. Already Done
Already Done as written the same day as Tick Tock about a month after September 11th -- and is another take is a take on tragedy. And the tragedy of when the grieving process never makes it past the Anger stage. This song is a lot of things to me. It's a memorial, first. Then it's an expression of dismay -- that, even after experiencing first hand the tragic affects of division among the world's people -- our response was orthodox nationalism. I would say our response is an inappropriate memorial.
11. Make Right the Time - part ii
The album ends with the conclusion of Make Right the Time.
Man, reading back over my own stuff -- I don't sound fun at all. Which is funny to me. I'm sure not as heavy as all this sounds, I don't think. And as far as this album goes -- I think there's lightness and good humor sprinkled all through these songs. And -- well, God I hope, anyway -- you can just pop this thing on and ENJOY it without having to get stoned first, or properly weighted down.