Question and Answer

Good afternoon! A quick one for you. Secret Story is one of my desert island discs, yet I’m trying to figure out where the five additional tracks on the deluxe edition would fit into the original track order, as the original album sequence does indeed convey itself as a story. "A Change of Circumstance" seems like it would follow "Antonia" or "The Truth Will Always Be." "As If It Were The End" feels as though it could end the story, as the credits roll, yet it changes the mood of the album. Were these originally in the song cycle and eliminated for time constraints, or were they recorded and left out for not fitting into the "story" so to speak?

BTW, love the vinyl releases. I found an import of Secret Story, and have gotten your latest recordings ("Orchestrion", etc.) on vinyl. The LP gatefold for Orchestrion is a wonderful throwback to those great records we used to buy in the past- -nice artwork on that one! Nonesuch does a great job on the vinyl pressings as well. Hoping "Unity Band" sees a vinyl edition soon. Thanks much!

Hi Neil,

Fairly early on I knew that there was no way I would be able to fit everything I had written and recorded on a single CD. Even as it was, SS was one of the longest CD programs that had been commercially released at that time. So I made choices early about how the record would unfold and those tunes were left off before I finished them - I never even did rough mixes of them. I always wanted to get back to them and finish them and thanks to Nonesuch was given that chance with the re-release a couple of years back. I really had to do a lot of work just to make sense out them and there was a fairly steep curve of things that had to be done to get everything over to a modern recording format. I kind of see those pieces as a single adjunct thing rather than part of the original program, almost like a record of its own. I am really glad you enjoy it.