my approach to writing with connected themes ...

I'm not sure how this became a pattern but I like to write with
connected themes especially when it comes to developing songs
that will be included in an album.

I think it turns the songs and albums in to more that songs,..
more than tracks with verses and hooks ...

When well executed the songs can develop into multi-layered chapters, where even one
line can be a document of a fact or philosophy.

A prime example of this is the track "FOUL" that opens the album "Things That Go Bump in the Dark" ...
Not only does it reference and add-on to specific ideas from all previous albums, but it also functions as a perfect keynote and connecting track for the album it opens.




Lyrics:

as I tried to survive I ran from the earth
considering of all of the predators, mankind is the worst

If the foul could spit
The wildest shit
And some how forget
Their torch is lit
That must mean the righteous
Must get
More morbid
To comprehend the flow
Earn dough
and just
keep try to up wit it
So we craft the sound track
Like a silent pic
Ca' people see it going down but won't say shit
soon chicks come to roost and they pitching a fit

Clowns in the shadow
And this ain't no comic
got weak morale
And appetites bionic

like the world so ironic
you gotta puff the chronic
just to avoid
a screen play of a dream psychotic
i spy sick
all type tricks
with my night glasses
and life long classes
a taking names an
kickin vampire asses

but what you got ask is
as each one passes
how you know when the last day is
how late can you before you're absent

------

The sweet spot of connection in this set of lyrics are the lines that say:

Clowns in the shadow
And this ain't no comic
got weak morale
And appetites bionic


Connecting the metaphor of CLOWNS used in the songs
"Circus" (from "The Life We Chose" album)
and
"Cats" (from "Big Appetite"album) ...

Even from the introduction of the clown in "Circus"
its obvious we are talking about far more tragic and destructive
clown than those you find in Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth.

But by the time you hear about the CLOWN again in "FOUL", the reason
for concern & fear has manifest itself in the dark.


"CATS"


"... you can shut this Circus down, and give a wash cloth to every CLOWN,
or watch them transform just like me, into the cats we was meant to be"


"CIRCUS"


"...mama in the mirror painting her smile on, cousin in the room with the big CLOWN style on"