This is my latest album, released on January 28, 2022.
It is a Rock album, in the Album Rock genre, by an artist who still believes in the power of Rock’n’Roll and albums, for fans of Rock music, in a world where such releases are increasingly rare, if not altogether archaic. It is the keystone release of my magnum opus, designed to put me and my music before newer and wider audiences who may be thirsting for new releases of this style of music. As with the best albums in the genre, it is designed to be listened to in one sitting, taking in the music, lyrics, and the story they tell. The best way to listen to it is in physical, tangible form, and it is available in CD format; in keeping with the times, it is also available online at all the major streaming and download sites. But since the CD does not include a lyric sheet, and listening interruptedly to the streamed or downloaded version does not lend itself to following the lyrics, and it is impractical to skip around this blog looking for the original lyric posts—I have compiled all the lyrics to the songs on the album here. And so, without further ado:
This is the story of a love affair
Of passion and despair with that lazy crazy place
The holy city, the holy land, oh Lord have mercy
Jerusalem New Jersey, to me it’s no disgrace
Who’s that child sitting in the stroller
A junior rock’n’roller in front of daddy’s hotel
Ridin’ across the sky suspended from a cable
Mixing bowl cradle, casino carousel
Well, folks met folks and the seeds of love were sown
Paradise found, now for the time it could be home
In the wild turbulence, the seeds were scattered and blown
But what’s been planted must grow
Thus did the Jersey Shore Baby
I once shared a playpen with an inner lake angel baby
And maybe, just maybe, she rubbed off on me
And when thirteen came around, there came the magical weekend
Off the lovers’ deep end between I and she
I found the secret to life on a lucky charm imprinter
And I shattered to splinters all I used to be
From neb-nerd to cool, no longer a pushover
The old way was over and I felt so free
I made this town mine, I made it all my own
Dreamland high above all the mundanities of home
I had stumbled upon Eden but my flight fell like a stone
Into open-ended exile thrown
Orphaned Jersey Shore Baby
A simpler time in the not too distant past
When the cars were fast and the love was in bloom
A more innocent age when the buildings were standing
Life wasn’t so demanding and the bust was a boom
Maybe one day I can end this dispersion
With no more diversion keeping me from my one true love
Well, it’s no time to bitch, it’s time to get moving
About time to start proving these dreams made flesh and blood
And though what we grew up with in our generation
May have fallen into disintegration
But I’m marshaling forces to turn desolation
Into paradise by the sea, I’m the Jersey Shore
Rebuild the scenery, I’m the Jersey Shore
Well come waltz with me, I’m the Jersey Shore Baby
I said Help me Doc, I got songwriters’ block
I just can’t find my inspiration
He said That ain’t no block, you just ran out of stock
what you need, dude, is a long vacation
I was in the east, my heart was in the west
and when asked why resist assimilation
I left my heart back in Asbury Park
that was the explanation
In junior high I would lift my eyes
to from where will come my salvation
In the army I swore I’d head straight for the shore
when my three years reached their cessation
The beacon that shined its light into a mind
blackened by social darkness and isolation
With the promise that someday, after the bull gets blown away
I’d undertake massive relocation
Chip on my shoulder since I was a soldier
Drive your friends crazy, don’t get lazy
Underground homesick, grab yourself a broomstick
This ain’t no statement, just block abatement
Tramping around through the streets of this town
under an onslaught of precipitation
The mist was so thick, I knew I’d be sick
without some spiritual medication
I staggered my way to nuevo dolce cafe
and sat down to the taste of innovation
Then the evening sky cleared so I regrouped and steered
my sights to nocturnal invasion
Saw her sitting on the boardwalk rails
with her usual gang of friend females
in sweatshirt jeans and flirtation
Flashed her my jazz and blues and snakeskin shoes
and then she was mine for the duration
She took my arm, she felt so warm
she was a summer night's soft intoxication
I didn’t inquire she was lover for hire
but she didn’t fit the characterization
What am I trying to say here, this ain’t no cliché here
You wanna be a beatnik, you gotta be a streetnik
Check the rhyme and meter, you ain’t gonna beat her
Blinded by the light Bruce, no use, call a truce
But you know it’s all right
Yeah, you know it's all right
But you know it's all right
It's all right if it's all night
Well, maybe the agencies declared a hiring freeze
But I’m not looking for a job or a vocation
This is the time I’ll seize just to follow the breeze
Blowin’ through town on revisitation
I’ve come here to spurn the life of Sit And Learn
And I don’t want no redemption or salvation
No matter which way I turn, my bridges seem to burn
So I’m just here in life to find my station
From the seaside bar joints to the land’s-end points
Pick, choose, and shoot for my destination
I’ve come to anoint the long-awaited counterpoint
To these trends of cynicism and stagnation
127 miles of as many different styles
The possibilities of limitless exploration
No more self-denial or tribulations and trials
I won’t accept any statute of limitation
Playing my wordgames, so what if it all sounds the same
None of this crap rap beatin’ like a clap trap
Radio hum drum makes me go ho hum
Rock’n’roll, tidy bowl, no soul, pigeonhole
Grab your attention, keep it in suspension
It’s the great backlash against all the cheap trash
Mindless conformity, mental deformity
If you ain’t receivin’ it, don’t you believe in it
One hazy teenage summer, as my world began to change
A song oozed through the radio, so new and different and strange
So unlike the current trends, my hair stood on end
At the sound of that guitar and that sax
I stood still and succumbed to the piano and drums
And I knew there was no turning back
He was the boss, the doctor, the angel of soul
King of the Jersey Shore, crown prince of rock’n’roll
The music he made reached deep inside and took hold
Oh, the love that it gave me!
Through whirlwind years of love and pain
after I first discovered him
Through earthquake battles shaking the walls
after being told to sink or swim
Through the storm and the stress and the fear and the threats
Always on the edge of a hurricane squall
Through innocence and wildness and ecstasy and crisis
Whether laying low or walking tall
He’d be speaking straight to me whenever I’d hear him sing
He was right there with me telling me he’d been through the same thing
He gave me strength and courage through whatever fate would bring
Oh, the faith that can save me!
Not just a rock’n’roll singer, he was my big brother
He was my male role model above any other
He showed me how to express the things that I’d feel
And he showed me what it meant to be true and be real
Then people made faces whenever I’d mention his name
I couldn’t understand why, it was such a damn shame
Ten years of backlash
Disrespected and bashed
Especially in his own backyard
Headbands and hangers-on and that ersatz refrain
All the hype and hoopla, so cartoonish and lame
His love life displayed
More than the music he made
Where the hell was the hero with his guitar?
Three fugazy albums and an image gone sour
Gave me reason to doubt his undeniable power
Taking on the world’s weight
Stumping for issues and candidates
The way he’d never dream of selling me a car
His myths and legends have become unhip and passé
His rock’n’roll promises have all faded away
I used to believe, I still wanted to believe
But he’s making it so damn hard!
Well I still tear up the highways whenever I’m back down here
Into the bars and the backstreets of these towns here
I follow all the bands that emulate his sound here
Still looking for him ‘cause I know he’s around here
And when I finally meet him after I waited so long
I’ll say Thanks for the music, the great lyrics and songs
You showed me how to hold on to a dream that’s so strong
Someday it may raise me!
EXILE DETOUR (Instrumental)
So why do I keep coming back? ‘Cause of all I’m saying here
Teenage punk fantasies of getting a band and playing here
On hold for twelve years but now there’s no delaying here
I’ve established the fact ‘cause now I’m back and babe I’m staying here
I feel free! Myself! Loose! Unchained and unfettered here
Unweighted, unburdened, untied, and untethered here
Because for the first time life began to look better here
And so I upended the reason for following the law to the letter here
Oppression thrown off and independence declared here
The forces that would claim me all blinked when I stared here
They fell before my challenge, they took and lost my dare here
Now I got the last word about how long to grow my hair here
Now I’m the one to decide how outrageously to dress here
Which realities to question and what conventions to test here
And if the past was cursed, then the future is blessed here
‘Cause I won’t stop till I’ve shot to the top
and I’m up there with the best here
Falling in love and coming of age here
Finding the key to the universe and unlocking the cage here
Planning my strategy and setting the stage here
And if you ask me what’s all the rage here
Well—rock’n’roll is king here!
The angels they sing here!
It’s all got that swing so it means everything here!
History was made here!
The greats all stayed and played here!
The bands made their stands on the strand’s grand parade here!
No apologies here!
The place to just be is here!
The wild innocent spirit in the night still runs free here!
There’s a heart that still beats here!
The unfinished completes here!
Romance blooms in every crack in the streets here!
I know just what gives here!
No more negatives here!
I’m reborn, I feel alive, I touch life, I live here!
So now I’m coming back to be with the things that formed me
To stomp on ideology and laugh at conformity
In spite of all the well-meaning naysayers who warn me
I’m coming back to harvest all the things that are going for me
I’ve come back to this place from the ends of the earth
To taste that shot of love and experience rebirth
I can lie on the sand and melt into the turf
I sit by on the water’s edge and become one with the surf
It’s a way of life it’s not just another place
It’s where everything moves at just the right pace
Without any needs to get caught up in the race
It’s contentment and ease and a certain style and grace
So this is the story of where it’s all at
Where the awkward geeky kid became a supercool cat
Where the Jersey Shore Baby sprang free of his trap
It ain’t just an act he’s here and he’s back …
and that’s that!
There she stands straddling the boardwalk
Pushing out from the beach into the sea
Like some vaunted marine version of radio city
She stands crumbling but she’s calling out to me
She’s the crown jewel of the waterfront
The echo of former grandeur
The haggard old lady of the coastline
A glimmer of former splendor
Once upon a time she saw royalty come and go
Long ago when she hosted many a famous face
But now even the derelicts that used to hang here are gone
They moved along and never were replaced
Her star once shone bright in the sky
But like a meteor, she fell
It was a downward spiral onto the slagheap
And all that’s left now is a hollow shell
I walk the terraces soaked with ocean spray
Beneath the paint-chipped vaulted ceiling
I search around for a way inside
Just to get the feeling
Just to stand within the cavernous hall
To let her spirit surround me
And to try once again to make heads or tails
Of what’s going on around me.
Well, I can’t believe that this is happening yet again
After we both agreed once that we didn’t want to repeat that end
But you had this thing about “growth,” above everything else
And at the same time you say I’m thinking only of myself
Why don’t you look in the mirror
Well, we went out west to change our place and change our luck
We didn’t last a year there before the disaster struck
It was those ‘friendships’ you cultivated outside of us, away from me
Well, I know how close your kind of ‘friends’ can be
Now the picture is so much clearer
And all your advisers whisper in your ear
That you could be doing so much better than me
Your enablers tell you what you want to hear
And they show you what you want to see
Your sycophants that all surround you
With your pronouncements, they’ll all agree
And all of the above, they drown you
With brown tides of sympathy
And you emphatically state “there is no us”
You resent the way I push and you’re not even willing to discuss
But if I don’t fight for us, what does that make me?
Well you stall, blackball, and build your wall
With the help of all your ‘friends’
You obfuscate and manipulate
All your means to reach your ends
You may say that there is no more us
I say it isn’t so
There always was an us, there is an us
And I refuse to let it go!
And as I sit inside by the piano onstage
Playing my heart out to four thousand empty seats
The hidden sounds of concerts and celebrations of better days
Embedded in these walls release their heat
And set me on fire with a passion that consumes
A passion that once existed for you filling up this empty room
Bringing some life to light the palpable darkness and gloom
Struggling in vain to counteract the words of my inner prophet of doom
No more funny places
No more famous faces
No more days at the races
No more steeplechases
No more former graces
No more love embraces
All that’s left is empty spaces
And the glory with barely any traces
It’s all gone!
Well, I heard it on the highway like the holy word of G-d
It was so loud and clear I had to pull over, I was so awed
Well, I heard it on the highway and I couldn’t resist the push
It was just like a commandment from heaven,
like the voice in the burning bush
Well, shake, rattle, and roll down the Garden State
Down Routes 35, 71, and 88
Even if we’ll just run round in circles cursed by fate
We’ll capture all the views now ‘cause we may never be here again
I heard it on the highway, it was the greatest song in history
It had a rhythm and melody all its own but the lyrics, they were a mystery
It was the sound of the rock’n’roll heart
and it was beating in full blues time
It said, Go down to the ocean and make the music of your mind
Well, I saw it from the highway
Risin’ on the horizon like Mt Sinai in flames
Like a fiddler on the roof down on the Parkway
Singin’ out that tune and calling my name
It was handed to me by the seaside
White hot and written in stone
Full power forward and full speed ahead
No stopping now that you’re on your own
It was the day I graduated
when I came back in touch with the calling
It was there where fifteen bands were playing
Paying respect to the one who had fallen
It was just as the all-star open jam was ending
The sound of drums boomed from way up high
There were ten bolts of lightning, one for each Word
crashing through the mist-choked sky
I heard an organ scream through a Leslie
But none on Earth ever sounded so great
I looked up to heaven, I thought I saw the moon
But I knew I was staring clear through the gates
I kicked off my shoes, I fell down on my knees
I bowed face down into the sand
But he didn’t want none of that false formality
She just wanted me to reach out my hand
Well, I heard it on the highway …
When I saw that above-mentioned vision, I must have gone blind
When I heard it on the highway I nearly lost my mind
I was knocked out in the first round
Dead before I hit the ground
Knocked out in the first round
And I left what I once was behind
I saw the boardwalk lying empty like an unplowed field
I saw the casino’s doors all shut and sealed
I was knocked out in the first round
When I saw what became of my old town
Something got stolen and I couldn’t live it down
And it burned like a scar unhealed
There was a circle on the floor where the carousel used to be
There was G-d-only-knows-what where dad’s hotel used to be
There was just dirty water where the bumper boats used to be
There were cruisers and dealers where the rollercoaster used to be
The ferris wheel used to be
The pier of steel used to be
The sky ride, the high dive, this town’s appeal used to be
I don’t want to be a Used To Be
The true believers all come by busload and caravan
And it seems like every one of them has got a plan
But they’re all knocked out in the first round
When they see the disparities that still abound
Ready once again to burn it all to the ground
They don’t care, just as long as they see their man
Everybody holds out hope for some improvement
But nobody holds out any hope for any new amusement
It’s all knocked out in the first round
They bulldozed the Palace down
All they saved was the Tillie grin from the silly old clown
Now it’s all history but hey, at least there’s movement
There are upscale condos where the Monterey used to be
There are upscale condos where Net Lane’s used to be
There are upscale condos in what the Berkeley used to be
There are upscale condos where the St. James used to be
There’s upscale where everything we knew used to be
There’s upscale and more upscale as far as the eye can see
Maybe what’s better is what Used To Be
So here I am, still in my position as a rock’n’roll singer
A piano player in the place where my soul still stubbornly lingers
I wanna make sure my glory days don’t fade away
I wanna make sure my glory days are here to stay
I wanna make sure my glory days keep on being glory days
‘Cause they’re slipping right through my fingers
C-8 meets C-4 and then—implosion
Another piece of a broken dream falls into the ocean
We’re all knocked out in the first round
Dead before we hit the ground
Knocked out in the first round
Flat out cold, still on the way down
Knocked out in the first round
Fall like bricks but without a sound
Knocked out in the first round
What I saw when I finally came back to this town
Knocked out in the first round
So much happened since then but I still can’t live it down
Knocked out in the first round
Oh … knocked out!
Love runs aground
A wrenching sound
Into the shore like a burning ocean liner
Drifting, smoking, ramming into this town
What happens to a love that couldn’t get much finer
Hellstorm
Hellfire
Seven days and seven nights just like a bad dream
Nobody knows if there will be any survivors
Such a senseless end was unforeseen
Straight from the wedding
They were heading
Off to a happy ending
But they caught fire out at sea
They lost power
In the fateful hour
Just what went wrong remains a mystery
Hellstorm
Hellfire
The burning hulk beached off the convention hall
Destruction meets destruction and the toll rises higher
Spectators from the city
Come one, come all
Is this conflagration
The sorry culmination
Of a romance everybody said
Showed a sea of promise
Sha la la
It was magic
Now it’s tragic
Fairy tale love gone become a nightmare
Save Our Ship
Save Our Survivors
Save Our Souls
sweet rock’n’roll
It was a class act
Now it's a sad fact
B-movie love affair done gone up in flames
Save Our Ship
Save Our Survivors
Save Our Souls
sweet rock’n’roll
Love runs aground …
Well, our love ran aground when the passion engine locked
The sudden jolt caused me to bolt and finally take stock
Our house was made of glass and you flung that rock
And I was shattered by the crash
I moved the token of our love from my finger to my pocket
I’d love to take it to the lake and shoot it off like a rocket
Or maybe I’ll just take it downtown and hock it
After all, I could use the cash
I tried walking all over the shards of what we used to be
But in my blindness and oblivion I stepped on them in my bare feet
My soul in exile, trailing my blood in the street
Oh, those glass memories cut so deep
Remember what must be like ancient history
How we’d spin up to the cities in search of music and poetry
The little lost sheep poet’s son-in-law would turn his own key
From an old tradition into a song
From the bottom line to the middle east to the castle by the sea
From the funky clubs down the aisle on the way to the canopy
This time it was to be for real, it was to forever be
And you marched on right along
I Love You I Love You I Love You Seven Times Round My Soul
went the refrain
And for snail’s pace time I couldn’t put it on for fear of withdrawal pain
My soul in exile, tried crying but no tears came
This time nothing remains
Well, our love running aground
It must have been a spectacular sight to see
Considering how it blew up like Independence Day fireworks
In front of the whole community
And speaking of independence
I’m taking my time cherishing my newfound liberty
Time and money are mine to spend
Any which way now that I’m free
I’m doing all the things I couldn’t do with you
And I’m doing them with such glee
You thought I wouldn’t have the guts
But that just shows how well you really knew me
You think I’ll just sit here and rhapsodize
Till I question my sanity
But that won’t happen this time, you see
I’m through with the dirge and elegy.
Well, there would have been a time
I’d have loaded up my car with all my past mistakes
And like a stunt in a movie
I’d stick the accelerator to the floor and disconnect the brakes
I’d take her up Edgemont
And with a figure-eight spin I’d ditch her in the lake
As if somehow all that would
Eliminate all the pain and dull all the ache
Well, this time I think
I’ll leave all the garbage by the curbside
I’ll set all the flotsam at the waterline
Let it get taken by the high tide
Then I’ll point my car whichever way she’ll go
And hit the road for that long, long ride
But without you as the rider by my side
I have only my faith as a guide
My ship runs adrift when cast off from you
With nowhere to land, no direction, little hope of rescue
My soul is in exile as long as it’s not one with you …
©2022 The Hesh Inc.
Full album is available on my Bandcamp site (in case you missed the link above).
Also see album credits here.