All Things Spoken (1979)
Genre: Singer-Songwriter, Folk
Love is the most complicated of all human emotions, tangled up with the psychological need for human companionship, the evolutionary impulse to procreate, and associated feelings of insecurity, possessiveness, jealousy, duty and obligation. It’s continually threatened by the potential for infidelity and the waning of passion over time.
It’s no wonder that 65-70% of modern popular songs are about relationships and love. Add to that the percentage of songs about sex or sexual desire and the number climbs even higher.
“All Things Spoken” addresses the sometimes ephemeral nature of love and the words we use to express our feelings. What can the phrase “I love you” really mean, if we are capable of repeating it (in absolute sincerity) to different partners at different stages of our lives? Are these private affirmations—or the public ones (“for better, or worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part”)—just aspirational, reflecting the transitory nature of love itself, or are they outward manifestations of some deeper, abiding emotion?
As a serial monogamist, I was never comfortable with the “Love the One You’re With” ethos of the 1960s. But how much are we willing to commit to a relationship if we’re not sure it will last, especially if we’ve been hurt in love before? And what do we expect in return? If we’re constantly guarded in our feelings, what do our promises really mean? I wrote “All Things Spoken” in 1979 with all these questions in mind.
I had a poorly recorded cassette tape of me singing the song in my living room, complete with unintended noise: street traffic, the chirping of my parakeet, Lucky, and the snorting of my dog, Parker, in the background.
After the release of The Beatles’ track,“Now and Then,” I tried to use similar AI technology to disaggregate the background noise from my voice and guitar, thinking I could build on the old recording for this release. Unfortunately, the software isn't that sophisticated yet. It can separate a human voice from piano or guitar playing, but it can't isolate and eliminate bird noises just yet.
So, I opted to re-record the entire song this year, with Band-in-a-Box as my usual “karaoke” fallback.