This song was written one night as I watched part two of the mini-series of the same name which told the story of a group of islanders cut off from civilization by a terrible storm while some unknown menace picks them off one by one. By the time I finished the last verse, most of the cast was toast. I would like to dedicate this song to the survivors.

Songwriting can be a mysterious process. "Fly Away" downloaded itself into my consciousness one idea at a time. For about a week I had listened as the meaningless words, "rhinestone limousine," kept bouncing around in my head. About a week later, I suddenly began singing the chorus to myself. Then the words "rhinestone limousine" didn't seem to fit anymore, so it became a "junkyard limousine." By the time I got past the second verse, I began to see where the song was going.....but I still don't know where it came from. Belinda O'Connell provided some of the beautiful harmony vocals on this song, as well as many others on the CD.

You can run and you can hide but the same old blues come 'round again.

My friend and fellow songwriter, Bo Jamison was the inspiration for this song. I had to get my Audubon Bird book out to select the appropriate species. Unfortunately, Tennessee Warbler was just too much of a mouthful! (She sings harmony here and on several other songs).

This is the oldest song on the CD. I actually wrote the lyrics while I was sanding the hardwood floor at the bottom of a haunted staircase in my old Greek Revival house in Upstate New York. I imagined my favorite recluse, Emily Dickinson, looking down at me from the top stair landing. (I found out later, after having read a biography, that my "fictitious lyrics" were pretty factual.) The line "put that book away" is a direct quote from my mother who used to get upset with me for reading all day.

Where I grew up, the spring flowers creep out slowly, one tentative crocus at a time. (This only makes sense in an area where it can still snow in May.) So the first spring I spent in Georgia I was amazed at how all the flowers seemed to bloom on the same day creating a riot of color. The pinks and purples of the azaleas and wisteria vines reminded me of a gaudy dress that you just have to buy, but you probably shouldn't wear.

I have a rustic cabin in Virginia's Blueridge Mountains. Since it has no plumbing, it sometimes becomes necessary to go outside at night, or, "down the mountain". This song began as a joke one crisp October night as Eddie and I joked that if he went "down the mountain" he might never return.

We really were the first family on our block to have a television set and all the older kids in the neighborhood would congregate daily to watch "classics" like Zorro and The Lone Ranger. I was a very popular child back then. Today, reality TV is killing me!

This was the first song I wrote after my own migration to Florida in 1997.

I picked up a hitchhiker on the road to the Florida Folk Festival in White Springs a few years ago. He was strangely attired and carried an old banjo. He promised that if I would take him to the Suwannee he would give me this song and he did.

Unfortunately, current events are keeping this song current.

The dream vacation I never had at a location I've come to know. While growing up, I always envied the girl next door whose parents took her to exotic Florida every year on vacation. I remember their annual slide presentations fondly. The imaginary family in this song gets close, but no cigar.