Spock's Beard (2006)

Spock's Beard

Released November, 2006

The ninth studio album

  1. On A Perfect Day (7:47)
  2. Skeletons At The Feast (6:33)
  3. Is This Love (2:51)
  4. All That’s Left (4:45)
  5. With Your Kiss (11:46)
  6. Sometimes They Stay, Sometimes They Go (4:31)
  7. The Slow Crash Landing Man (5:47)
  8. Wherever You Stand (5:09)
  9. Hereafter (5:01)

As Far As The Mind Can See

  1. Part 1 - Dreaming In The Age Of Answers (4:49)
  2. Part 2 - Here's A Man (3:28)
  3. Part 3 - They Know We Know (3:18)
  4. Part 4 - Stream Of Unconsciousness (5:23)
  5. Rearranged (6:07)

Band Members:

  • Nick D’Virgilio - Lead & Backing Vocals, Drums, Timpani, Percussion and some Guitar
  • Alan Morse - Guitars, Backing Vocals and Lead Vocal (6)
  • Dave Meros - Bass, Bass Synth, Sitar and Backing Vocals
  • Ryo Okumoto - Keyboards and Backing Vocals

With:

  • The Section Quartet: (1,7,10,13) Eric Gorfain - Violin, Daphne Chen - Violin, Leah Katz - Viola, Richard Dodd - Cello (The Section Quartet appears courtesy of Decca Records.)
  • Stephanie O’Keefe - French horn (1,7,12,13)
  • Jon Titmus - French horn (1,7,12,13)
  • Jon Papenbrook - Trumpet & Flugelhorn (12,13)
  • Eric Jorgensen - Trombone (12,13)
  • Ray Yslas - Percussion (4,5,11,14)
  • Kaylene Peoples - Flute (1)
  • Kiko Izumi - Erhu (9)
  • John Boegehold - Voices (5,7,11,12), additional guitar (2,13) and synths (1,2,10,13)
  • Stan Ausmus - Voices (12) and additional guitar (1)
  • Rich Mouser - Voices (12)
  • “They Know We Know” kids voices - The Barnhart Chorus, Judith Stevens, Director

String & Horn arrangements by Dave Meros and John Boegehold, except for “On A Perfect Day” by John Boegehold.

01. On A Perfect Day

Ausmus, Boegehold, D’Virgilio & Morse

From over the mountains
A gathering storm
A vision of empires fading
The wind and the water
The red sky’s reborn
We’re safe in a garden waiting

Lost in the light of our golden ages
Found in a book hidden on the pages
Words for a time we’ll wake on a perfect day

Through cold stones and clover
A road built anew
The saints and the war they’re winning
For home and for harvest
The wisdom that grew
The end of the fight beginning

Lost in the light of our golden ages
Found in a book hidden on the pages
Words for a time we’ll wake on a perfect day

02. Skeletons At The Feast

Boegehold & Meros

Instrumental

03. Is This Love

D’Virgilio

Break my heart
Break it like you mean it
Cause you won’t get another chance
Steal my thunder
Suck the air out from my lungs

Tear me down
Throw me in the garbage
Get some gasoline and light a match
Turn me into ash
Or I might be comin’ on back

Is this love
Is this lovin’ how it’s done?
I can’t get I can’t get enough of you
You make it so much fun fun fun

Am I a lunatic?

Beat me up
Yell at me in front of your precious little friends
Shut me out
Don’t listen to a word I say

I got nothing
Brewin’ or discovered
Just you and your pretty face
So pull me under
Squash me like a bug as I’m runnin’ the race

Is this love
Is this lovin’ how it’s done?
I can’t get I can’t get enough of you
You make it so much fun fun fun

Am I a lunatic freak guy?

Oh…you oughta know
You oughta know
I won’t let go
I won’t let go
You oughta know
I love you so

04. All That’s Left

Boegehold & Meros

In dreams I reach to touch your perfect face again
In dreams you never cry or walk away
But I wake to the truth like daylight streaming in
I never found the way, the words to make you stay

Photographs and falling leaves
Scattered dust of memories
The poems I wrote I still believe
That’s All That’s Left of You and Me

I found a flower in a book you hid away
In better days that seem so long ago
I tried to touch it but it crumbled in my hand
Just like the future we would never know

Photographs and falling leaves
Scattered dust of memories
The poems I wrote I still believe
That’s All That’s Left of You and Me

Echoes of a better time
Ring forever in my mind
Where I’m going where I’ve been
Different places in the end

Photographs and falling leaves
Scattered dust of memories
The poems I wrote I still believe
That’s All That’s Left of You and Me

05. With Your Kiss

D’Virgilio

The rainy days have come again
Feel like breakin’ down
Feel like breakin’ down
Memories of long lost friends
Come and flood my head
All the things we said
Swords and knives and fork and spoons
For the killing feast
Alive or deceased
Spinning round and round my room
Feel like breakin’ down
Feel like slowin’ down

Come now hold my hand
Walk with me
Talk with me
Life’s all good
When I’m alone with you
If I had just one wish
Life remains just the same
Don’t change a thing for me
All I can be
All I can do
Hope and faith
Seal my fate

With you kiss forever on my lips

I am home
Not alone
Take me home

Call me crazy call me mad
But there is no choice
I need to hear your voice
Tellin’ me things I don’t want to hear
Pushin’ me back
Back to a place that I fear
Feel like breakin’ down

(chorus)

Just when I thought I knew everything
Just when I thought I had it all goin’ on

All brand knew and redefined
Don’t need no help I’m feelin’ fine
Cut out all the junk and trash
Streamline the bulk and stash

Hey!

Speak to me of times gone by
Don’t want your glib reply
Can’t believe I fell for you
Give it back again
And do what you do

Come now hold my hand
Walk with me
Talk with me
Life’s all good

When I’m alone with you
Don’t change a thing for me

06. Sometimes They Stay, Sometimes They Go

Ausmus & Morse

Hell, I don’t know why, but
Sometimes they stay, sometimes they go
I tried & I tried but like mercury
It just slipped through my fingers
Golden apples on a silver tray
You know what they say, well…

Sometimes they stay, sometimes they go
Sometimes they stay…

Like birds in the sky
Well, sometimes they stay ‘n sometimes they go
Like watching the tides
Tryin’ to hold back the waves
You know what I’m sayin’?
Even the President’s gotta pay
It all goes astray ‘cuz

Sometimes they stay, sometimes they go
Sometimes they stay, sometimes they go

Well, some people claim they can make it rain
Well I don’t know…
How long should I wait?

‘Cuz sometimes it rains ‘n sometimes it don’t
Even the preacher man’s gotta pay…

Sometimes they go
Sometimes they stay, sometimes they go
Sometimes they stay, sometimes they go…

Sometimes they go
Sometimes they stay
Sometimes they go

Sometimes they stay, sometimes they go…

07. The Slow Crash Landing Man

Boegehold & Meros

It seems he never lost his way
Through grievous dreams and shattered days
While leaving words weighed on his mind
His road is winding to an end
And now it’s time that he defends
The world and friends he left behind

The slow crash landing man unfolds
A future he so gently holds
Then shines his truth like molten gold
We’re free again
The slow crash landing man has won
He knows his final race is run
So we unload the starting gun
He’s free again

He lived his life in strangers’ skin
While all the people breathed him in
They never thought to ask him why
Then on a moondark winter night
The visions crept into his sight
Like heavens’ stars swept cross the sky

He rose up from the wreckage
Walked away alive
All cried out in wonder
He survives!

The slow crash landing man unfolds
A future he so gently holds
Then shines his truth like molten gold
We’re free again
The slow crash landing man has won
He knows his final race is run
So we unload the starting gun
He’s free again
Free again…

08. Wherever You Stand

D’Virgilio & Okumoto

Born from the hands of all men
The things we do are nothing new
But I feel it changin’

But I don’t buy that way of thinkin’
To many robots in the cue
What they tryin’ to do?

It’s a crazy world in which we live
We take take take and rarely ever give
The sense of the common man has gone
The way of the mammoth

Fight fight fighting fighting all the time
Us and them eating away our minds
So can we really ever get along
I highly doubt it

Wherever you stand
Stand up tall
Release us all

Where is the love in the human heart
Turned into stone, will only fall apart
The fox bought the chicken coop
And took over the palace

So what can we say what can we do
Isn’t there more of us then there are of you
One day the time will come
That renders you useless

Wherever you stand
Stand up tall
Release us all

Freedom does not come easy
Will we end it all or figure it out

It’s a crazy world in which we live
We take take take and rarely ever give
The sense of the common man
Has gone the way of the mammoth

Fight fight fighting fighting all the time
Us and them eating away our minds
Let’s take the lessons learned
And do something about it

09. Hereafter

Boegehold & Okumoto

Pray for her
Grace in mourning light
Bathed in shades of white
Gentle Earth open to receive
We believe she is home
None are left alone
Whispered words and sacred songs
Summon days we belonged together as we
Knelt and nursed our hopes
Then rose and watched the heavens run
In awe and wonder
Understand
Time has come we know she cannot stay
Pray for her
Pray for her

Pray for her
Story just begun
Warm in golden sun
Days stretch out flowing to the skies
In our eyes we were whole
Something in her soul
Cleared the fog of endless hours
Days bloomed as flowers all around us while the
Truth she hoped to hide
Inside and sheltered in her heart
A life had started
Still one soul departed
Part of us
We’ll go on but how I can not say
Pray for her
Pray for her

As Far As The Mind Can See

Boegehold & Meros

10. Part 1 - Dreaming In The Age Of Answers

We mapped the waves in the ocean
Bridged the clouds in the sky
Grew our wings in a maze of emotion
Found our will to fly

We lit the land of believers
With words we burned into stone
We held our ground in the war of deceivers
Claimed it as our own

We’re dreaming in the age of answers
We’re breathing in eternity
While the future flows and dances
As far as the mind can see

On the edge of creation
Beyond the absence of doubt
With every reason but no explanation
We fought our way back out

We’re dreaming in the age of answers
We’re breathing in eternity
While the future flows and dances
As far as the mind can see

11. Part 2 - Here’s A Man

You’d best not return take the money and run
Said a well-meaning friend to this prodigal son
I know where you’re going don’t care where you’ve been
Cause you’ve already lost more than you’ll ever win

Here’s a man whose time has past
While crime is marching on
This night on earth will be his last
And when he’s gone, he’s gone

The noises in his head kept him wired and awake
As he savored events of his last lucky break
He said set ‘em Paco and I’ll knock ‘em back down
When my glass is half empty, pour another round

Here’s a man whose time has past
While crime is marching on
This night on earth will be his last
And when he’s gone, he’s gone

Old Charlie Tanner was out walking his dog
Found the prodigal son face-down dead in a bog
The priests and the prophets were all mystified
That no paper reported the fact he died
That he died…

12. Part 3 – They Know We Know

We turned our backs as the enemy landed
Handed them guns then got out of their way
No one’s surprised by the way it all ended
It’s well documented now there’s nothing to say

Cause they know
They know we know
They know
They know we know

Some took the last train and some took their chances
Danced out of sight by the light of machines
Move along people there’s nothing to see here
You don’t have to be here to know what that means

Cause they know
They know we know
They know
They know we know

Now we sleep with one eye open
Dream the days of running free
With hearts unbroken
No words unspoken
Remember what our lives again could be

Cause they know
They know we know
They know
They know we know

13. Part 4 - Stream Of Unconsciousness

We’re dreaming in the age of answers
We’re breathing in eternity
While the future flows and dances
As far as the mind can see

14. Rearranged

D’Virgilio

I have never been in this
For all the fortune and fame
All I ever wanted
Was to be in the game

A part of something bigger
Something bigger then me
Inspired from love of the moment
And being what I was born to be

Sometime a dream gets wasted
Sometimes it all just falls and fades away
And you may feel you’ve made it
Then in a flash it all get rearranged

Deaf dumb and stupid
Or am I just plain nice
Live and let live was a mantra I used
More then once or twice

Thought I had it all going on
Thought I was cruising in 5th gear
In a snap it all went out of control

Everything that was so normal now seemed
So confusing and weird
Now the live and let live
That was so safe in my heart
Didn’t feel that sincere
Giving all that I had
Doing right I believed
I’ll just go cry in my beer
I blinked my eyes and I had a new life
This much is clear

And what were my choices
Just go it alone
That’s not what the script read
Stay in the zone
It’s just getting started
About to explode
And when you’ve reached the top
Don’t forget where you came from