The Story Behind the Song - RAISE YOUR GLASS

When Brian was a very young guitar player, he found himself in a band with a group of other young musicians who very quickly became very good friends.  The kind of friends that become brothers.  They were constantly together.  They were there for each other throughout all the excesses of their youth, good and bad.  Even after Brian left the band to move to Los Angeles in pursuit of bigger dreams, they were there, cheering him all the way.  When he returned, they welcomed him back with open arms.  But something undefinable had changed. 

Years later, after they had all settled into life with families of their own, the friendship was still there, but they were never really as close as they had been.  It was as if secrets were being kept.  Still, they kept in touch with each other through regular phone calls and lunch get-togethers.  Then one day, as Brian was sitting down with the family for dinner, some music came drifting in the window from across the neighborhood.  Not just any music.  HIS music.  Songs he had written all those years ago were dancing along the breeze blowing through the windows of his home.  These friends of his – these men who had been such a large part of his life for decades – were playing his music without him at a party in his own neighborhood he was not invited to attend.  They were playing his music and passing it off as their own with no guilt, no shame, no explanation, and no apology.  They had betrayed his friendship and stolen his creation. 

This is the betrayal of Raise Your Glass.  Brian is the master, the song is the servant, those “friends” are the beast.

Raise Your Glass

Along the trail
The cold wet night
The servant and his master
They walked along
And sang a song
Fi diddly dee da die-o

The air was brisk
The night was still
Was there no need to wonder
The hunt was on
So sing a song
Fi diddly dee da die-o

They had no food
Nowhere to go
This servant and his master
A lonely pair
A shivered song
Fi diddly dee da die-o

Now raise your glass
And sing a toast
And drink until it’s empty
Sing to the east and
Sing to the west
The hunting hounds of hell

They heard a sound
A low down growl
A warning to be minded
A hairy beast
That sang a song
Fi diddly dee da die-o

The charge was fast
The beast attacked
The servant and his master
They had no time
To sing their song
Fi diddly dee da die-o

The master gasped
And tried to breath
As his heart was ripped wide open
The servant laughed
And sang a song
Fi diddly dee da die-o

Now raise your glass
And sing a toast
And drink until it’s empty
Sing to the east and
Sing to the west
The hungry hounds of hell

So off they went
Servant and beast
Along their merry way, yeah
They had the food
They had the song
Fi diddly dee da die-o

The master made
A splendid meal
For the Beast and servant
He filled them up
So sing a song
Fi diddly dee da die-o

So come with me
The Devil makes three
Toasts up to the Master
Raise up your cup
And sing along
The servant & the Master

Now raise your glass
And sing a toast
And drink until it’s empty
Sing to the east
Sing to the west
The drunken hounds of hell

Story Behind the Song – KASOJENI BAY

One afternoon, several years ago, as I was driving to the grocery store to do my weekly shopping, I saw a lady walking along the sidewalk next to the road.  She was wearing a floral print full-length cotton dress – obviously homemade – and a little white cotton bonnet on her head with a matching bib apron tied around her neck and waist.   On her feet, she was wearing what looked to be wooden clogs.  She was so odd and so beautiful and so out of place – like a Rembrandt portrait come to life in a John Baeder painting - that it was all I could do to concentrate on driving.  Once I made it home, I immediately texted Brian about her.  He, of course, told me to write it down.  (He’s always telling me to write these things down.)  
 

It was around this same time that Brian came down with a nasty case of the flu.  He shook me awake in the middle of a fever-filled night to demand that I find my bedside notebook and write down the name “Kasojeni Bay.”  No explanation … just the demand.  So I did.  I assumed it was a dream he’d had.  In a way, I guess it was, but he didn’t remember anything the next day other than the name of this place.  We spent weeks on the internet trying to search for a place by that name, only to keep coming up with nothing.   (My dad is still trying to find this place, so if anybody knows where it is, please let us know.)

Weeks later, on a late Sunday afternoon, Brian and I had been working in the studio on some other songs.  We came upstairs for a drink and to clear our heads for a moment, only to find that the only “adult beverage” we had in the house was a half bottle of Absinthe.  Being a Sunday in Utah, the liquor store was closed.  So, yes, we did a straight shot of Absinthe before heading back into the studio as we joked about shooting Absinthe because the vodka was all gone.

This was when the story of Kasojeni Bay started to come together into a song.  We’d envisioned it telling the tales of a group of people so happy and comfortable in their insanity that they don’t notice they are insane, nor do they care.  Sometimes, living in a fantasy world is a much better – in some cases, maybe even healthier – place than the ugliness of certain “real” world situations.

Once the song was written, we decided we wanted to have a few key phrases translated into and sung in a different language.  We’d flirted with a few different language options, but ultimately decided on Slovene.  Luckily, our good friend Jeremy Young speaks Slovene and kindly did the translations for us, even driving up to our house to teach me how pronounce the words and what each phrase means.  Then he accused me (jokingly … I hope) of singing Slovene with an Italian accent.  

 But the song itself wasn't enough to tell the story of this place called Kasojeni Bay.  While we were in the studio recording our album Shall We Live Forever, Brian was spending his mornings busily writing a book.  It wasn't his original intention.  He just got a little carried away by one of those "Tell me how we met, but don't tell the truth about it" posts on Facebook.  In a way, I guess we can blame Hillary LaFrance for starting him down that path.  What started out to be a simple, silly paragraph quickly became an insistence by the characters in this book for him to tell their story.  It was occupying his dreams, waking him up in the middle of the night, demanding to be written.  This book, Kasojeni Bay, weaves many of the stories of the songs on this album into a complete tale of discovery and what is truly important in life.

Kasojeni Bay

In her mind, another time
Shufflin’ down the street
Cotton bonnet on her head
Wood clogs upon her feet
She never said, “Hello,” to me
Nor even yet, “Goodbye”
She never said a word to me
Just looked at me and sighed
Nikoli mi je rekla "Zdravo"
Pač tudi ni "Zbogom"

In Kasojeni Bay

Friday did a one foot dance
Looked like a god in drag
He swatted flies and dead magpies
Then tossed them in his bag
Friday was an errand boy
Did favors for the Maven
He brought the message home to me
‘Cause, Friday was the raven
Petek je bil krokar
Petek je bil trčkaralo
Usluge je naredil ker
Friday was the raven

In Kasojeni Bay

(Dance with me! Dance with me!)

Bugs in the dumpsters
Sing oilcan operas to the Lord
He appears in concrete palm trees
And sugar cube fantasies
Fish dance in buckets
The Prophet is one of us
He is now

They shot Absinthe on Sunday
‘Cause the vodka was all gone
Then danced a tarantella
And sang death songs to the dawn
Friday missed his funeral
Although it was his own
The lady she made mourning buttons
Out of Friday’s bones
Petek pogrebu zamudil
Čeprav je bil njegov lastni
Dama je pripravila gumbe
Od Petkov kosti

In Kasojeni Bay

 

Kasojeni Bay by Brian Bonell

The Story Behind the Song: WE DON'T REMEMBER

Every song not only tells a story, there’s a story behind its creation.  In the case of “We Don’t Remember,” the story is of a dream.  Brian’s dream.  He woke up early one morning with the images of this dream still vibrant in his memory and immediately went to the kitchen table to write it all down.  Three pages later, I came stumbling out of the bedroom to find him busily scratching away with pen on paper.  When he finished writing it all down, he handed the stack of papers to me, saying, “Juana Ghani visited me last night.”  I sat there with my coffee, reading the details of his dream, and was pulled into this world as he glimpsed it, eavesdropping on his conversation with this lady.  Once done reading, I returned to our bedroom and retrieved my dream/inspiration notebook and handed it to him, opened to a page where I had scribbled, “It’s written on our souls.  Did we really come all this way and not know what we came here for?”  We looked at each other and knew this song had just been born.

We Don't Remember

I sat alone in a café bar
(I came there)
A Russian queen, a small and wispy thing
(He seemed to know)
It was so simple and so pure
(What could it mean?)
Looking up, she (I) walked out of a (his) dream.


They say we don’t remember
But it’s written on our souls.
Did we really come all this way
And not know what we came here for?


We embraced, his hands on the lace
(I held her close)
Stretched across the coin belt on my waist
(She’s really here)
I’ll sing to him the story of my loss
(I’ll give voice to her thoughts)
And run dancing into the dawn.


They say we don’t remember
But it’s written on our souls.
Did we really come all this way
And not know what we came here for?


Just … leave … ride … time
Just leave what you’ve known behind.
Ride this dream while we still have the time.


With her kiss, she opened up my mind
(Give up the past)
Showed me how to leave what was behind
(You’re free at last)
All I need is to call her name
(You know my name)
We’ll create a world that’s not the same.

They say we don’t remember
But it’s written on our souls.
Did we really come all this way
And not know what we came here for?

Just leave what you’ve known behind.
Ride this dream while we still have the time.