Album Notes
This is a great album. Three years after its release, I still like every song on the record and even listen to it for enjoyment! Only Changing Drugs became somewhat of a hit for me in certain parts of the country (wherever people drink too much), and Pearls Into The Dirt became the first Stuart Davis song to get heavy rotation on commercial stations. Not a lot of commercial stations, but some. KTAO out of Taos, New Mexico was my first official “add” (that’s industry lingo for when a radio station announces to other radio-types that they’re playing a certain record a certain number of times), and even to this day I am super famous in that part of the country. I also got “ads” in CA, MN, VT, blah, blah, blah… you get the idea. Who gives a shit about ads? Distributors and record labels, but not you. You give a shit about songs, so let’s talk about them.
I still perform all of the songs off of Self Untitled at my shows (although fans complain that I don’t do Pearls Into The Dirt enough, I do like that song, I just feel like the lyrics are sort of “look how many big words I know and how smart I am”, so I don’t play it as much, because as we all know I am a very humble, understated kind of fellow). Some specific thoughts on these tunes:
Universe Communion: As you may know, it was inspired by John Mack’s book Abduction. John is the head of psychiatry at Harvard, and I sent him the CD when it came out, which led to our speaking over the phone and then getting together in person. He and I have kept in touch, and I have written some new material on the subject which will be released soon. I become more connected to this topic all the time, and I think music (and art in general) can be an enormous asset in moving along the evolution of consciousness in our species. I see this topic of alien abduction-UFO’s more as an issue of the evolution of consciousness than anything else. In fact, I see that as the issue for nearly all the big topics, environmental, social…to me they are one struggle.
Little White Town: I thought it was about my hometown Lakeville, MN, but there are thousands of little white towns. People from Lakeville love this song though, and that’s because they’re racist pigs. Just kidding. That’s because they’re thoughtful.
Pipe Bomb Guru: My brother happens to be a federal investigator (export-import). He carries a gun and all that, and he was a green beret as well. Anyhow, people always say “how do you get away with singing that song about killing the president?” Well, how did Randy Newman get away with saying he hated short people? See, the guy in the song wants to kill the president, I just want to write songs and be a monk. Isn’t art tricky?
Someone Else’s Ears: This is one of my favorites. I have become a better listener since the song came out. It’s still hard for the girl I wrote it about to hear it, but we are engaged now so things are going well.
Feeding My Ego: A companion piece to Someone Else’s Ears.
You My Child: The best song I’ve ever written about abortion.
Dave Hussman produced this gem, and the boys from Hindu Rodeo played with me, as well as Peter Mayer and Karen Paurus.
- Stuart Davis, 1997
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