SCOTT H. MILLER: Letters to Myself

Scott H. Miller

Letters to Myself

© 2006 Scott H. Miller (783707355603)

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The idea is to tear your heart from your chest, kiss it lightly, and tuck it gently back inside. Or, failing that, to give you something to hum at the bus stop.

tracks

1 Three-Quarter Time
2 Letters to Myself
3 Winos
4 Lost You Said
5 Keep It Together
6 Music Is the Medicine
7 The Wedding
8 The Eagle
9 Complexion of My Love
10 Snow
11 Northern Sky
12 Run Free

notes

Born in Vermont; grew up in Brooklyn; pretty much an Alaskan by now. Played around the Berkshires in a band that moved by ‘59 Cadillac hearse. Made a demo, hung out with Cat Stevens’ cello player, auditioned for the guy who invented The Monkeys, ate at Ray's Pizza and Zabar’s as often as I could. Hit Anchorage as the backup band for a couple of guys with a record contract at Columbia and a song called “Alaska Bloodline.” Oil was about to flow even faster than the Jack Daniels. Knew a frontier when I saw one, having walked through Coney Island at 3 in the morning.

There was a war on, and the dead stalked our memories and the wounded walked the streets. We tried to watch sunsets, play music, fall in love. A boy and a girl stood back to back, barefoot on a warm stone in the rain. They felt the cloth between them soak through and melt away. Their skin grew into one another, and their blood flowed together like oceans around the Horn. The madness in the streets flowed, too, into a common pool and became, if not peaceful, at least familiar. For a moment we all stood around the pool and held hands and tried to levitate it, because who knows? Then there was AIDS and Reagan, and kids, and tech stocks. The wall fell; the space shuttle exploded, and we all went home to redecorate.

I try to put what I understand of life into songs. That leaves plenty of room for what I don't understand, so I put that in too. I wish I could imagine like Frank Zappa or Miles Davis, craft like Geoff Muldaur or Peter Mayer, harmonize like Girlyman, and synthesize like Imogen Heap. Failing, of course, I do the best work I can, with lots of appreciation for the fine musicians who have helped and anyone who listens.

Special thanks for encouragement to Albert McDonnell, Radoslav Lorkovic, Geoff Muldaur, David Francey, Robin Hopper, Kristina Olsen, Rick and Sheila Miller, Buddy Tabor, Phil Stewart, Greg Huebschen, Scott Merrick, the Dr. Schultz Band (in absentia), my mother, my wife, Annie, my ex-wife, Deborah, the kids we had together, the kids we had with someone else, everyone we're all related to, and the big fat moon that rises over Gastineau Channel.

If you're from New York, I suggest cut #3, and if you're from Alaska, try cut #9. If you're from New York and Alaska....well, I feel for you.

reviews

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  • This is delicious
    author: Scott Merrick

    Old friend Scott Miller can write in ways that I envy so much that I could weep. And so I do, sometimes, listening to this wonderfully at once comforting and challenging record. Buy it, listen to it often, and celebrate the unique mind and fingertips and vocal chords that made it happen.

  • author: bbd

    Fantastic! At least for this grown-up who wasn't an English major.

  • author: DHT

    Sounds like warm buttery cinnamon toast with raisins.

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