Song #10: Larger Than Life (1980)

Growing up in Granada Hills, our next door neighbor, Dave McClure, made his living as a carpenter and general handyman. I used to hang out and watch him work in his garage.
One day when I was around ten years old,  Dave was pulling some weeds around his house, and he asked if I would help.

A few hours of work later, he handed me a dollar bill!
I thought this was so cool, as it was the first money I'd ever earned.

Nine years later, I was working for Dave as his assistant.
We were doing a house remodel, and one of the other workers was the bass player, Bill Staebell. He recommended the keyboard player, John Serry from his band Auracle* as a piano teacher.

John went solo in 1979, with his album "Exhibition", and the gigs he played around town to promote the release were epic. The band was insanely tight, and his mastery of the keyboard was awe-inspiring. He nonchalantly walked on to Donte's stage with his keyboard scarf and cigarette dangling, and flipped the conventional jazz world on it's head.

All bets were off.

He taught me piano technique, and music theory, and his explanation of poly-chords was a game changer in my approach to creating music. He is my third musical mentor.

John recently released a new album "The Shift", and once again: all bets are off.

You can hear John's influence all over this song I wrote with Damon Leigh.

The ambitiousness of the music is matched only by the lyrics Damon wrote, which are based on "the Rubáiyát" by Omar Khayyám.

Recorded during the "burn in" sessions we did just before Skyline opened, I distinctly remember the guitarist Alan Morse bitching about the complexity of the song**.

And while Dave is comfortably retired in Arizona,  I hope he knows that he was also a mentor to me. He taught me an honest appreciation of people who work with their hands, and a deep respect for the working class heroes.

Larger Than Life

Now isn't strange that of everyone who

Before us has passed the darkest door through

No one returns to tell of the road

That for us to know we must travel too

There's something going on here

I don't know what it means

There must be something larger

Larger than life outside of dreams

I shot out my soul through the singular eye

Still thirsting to quench from this paradise well

And then by and by my soul came to tell

There can be no heaven in self-created hell

There's something going on here

I don't know what it means

There must be something larger

Larger than life outside of dreams

If heaven's but the vision of a found desire

Then hell's the helpless shadow of a soul on fire

Downcast upon the darkness into which it fell

Yet burning to emerge in time if only to expire

There's something going on here

I don't know what it means

There must be something larger

Larger than life outside of dreams

Britt Bacon: vocals, keyboards
Alan Morse: guitar
Jamie Sheriff: synth
Dean Groves: bass
Teddy Zambetti: drums

Written by Britt Bacon and Damon Leigh
©1980

Source: 1/4" analogue tape 30ips

*Researching this blog post I realized, in 1986, I engineered an album "Fresh Flute" by Steve Kujala, who was a member of "Auracle". I don't think I was aware of our John Serry connection when we were working together...

**Today Alan leads a prog-rock band, "Spock's Beard", and the songs on their new CD make "Larger than Life" sound like a nursery school song.