stories behind the songs • cover art • launch gig

All songs ©2005 Paul Solecki

I Ivan Eye

A few years ago my cat Numbskull ran away for about nine months. I started to write this song while he was gone about what he was up to the entire time. He came back before I finished writing the song, so I gave up on it for a few years, and only recently finished off the words. A few weeks after recording it and deciding that it would make a good first song for the album, my mom told me that Numbskull died. As a tribute to him, I hid him in the bushes on the cover of the cd! I'll miss you, Numbskull!

Zager and Evans

I wrote this song probably around 1996 or so about two guys who made some interesting music in the 1960s. I call it my fake folk song. I used to play it in Carnivorous Grass back when it was just me and Jim Kelly, and Jim had a really good whistling solo in between the two choruses. When Carnivorous Grass became a full band we abandoned this song, and when the band broke up I wanted to play it again but I couldn't whistle, so I took up the harmonica. The second verse was written about a year or two ago after I moved to Ireland.

The Potato

This is probably the oldest song on the cd, written in 1993. This is one of the reasons I named the cd Paul and Me, because there are both silly old songs written by the young me and newer pearls of wisdom written by the cool guy I am today! The last line of this song took on a new meaning when I moved to Ireland! It's a cult classic at Charlie's on Wednesday nights!

Every Couple of Days

This is a nice little love song that I wrote the first summer I was in Ireland...

Brian Frances

This is the epic tale of my first road trip with my friends. I went with Jim Kelly and Dan Brune a few weeks after we graduated high school, and we visited Canyon De Chelly, Arches National Park, and Rocky Mountain National Park and had a lot of great adventures along the way. It would take forever to go into all the details, adn to be honest it takes forever to listen to the entire song! Dan Brune also wrote an epic poem about this trip in the style of Homer which was about the size of a small book! Brian Frances is the name of a Navajo park ranger at Canyon De Chelly who told us stories one night around the campfire.

The Stars

Your classic flying through space love song. I remember writing this for the band Carnivorous Grass during chemistry class in high school, early 1996. Everybody always asks me who Mark Bentley is... He's a classical guitar player that Jim Kelly and I once went to see in Olathe, Kansas. In the song, his music is the background music for the dream. Carnivorous Grass released this as a single in 1996, and we occasionally perform this song in The Great Egress.

Waltz in H-flat Minor

Another early song, probably 1994 or 1995. I used to write about 10 songs per day back then, most of them weren't very good, but a few were worth actually writing music to and keeping. Especially this one, which can teach you a lot about life...

The Disaster

A brand new song, summer 2005. More on this one later...

The Giant Midget

The "something" in the verse was supposed to be some more words, and I just put something in there to fill the place in the melody. After a while I liked the something and kept it instead of actually thinking of the real words. Paul Simon did the same with the Lie Lie Lie part of The Boxer I think... Not sure what this song is about really.

Million Mile Sky

Another road trip song, this has become one of my signature songs in Cork. A full band version was relased on the first Vetivers album and a live solo version was included on Under The Lamp, the cd made from the Wednesday night singer songwriter nights at Charlie's. This is about a trip I went on with Clyde Kim, Bryan Ross, and Andrew "Paco" Walker to West Texas and Mexico during the time the Hale Bopp Comet was in the sky. The comet never made it into the lyrics of the song but I think about it every time I sing it.

The Ballad of Bill

A true story! No, not really. Another old song from around 1994, I think most of my songs from that time period ended with somebody (or everybody) dying!

When I Wake Up

The newest song on the cd, written summer 2005. It's about, well, come on, listen to the words!