Huff Post Exclusive Music Download

Each week leading up to the October 25th release date of the album, a new track will be posted for downloading on Rebecca's blog. A portion of every CD sold will go to support the Katrina relief efforts of the Red Cross.

On reading the first part of Anthony Powell's four-part masterpiece, "A Dance to the Music of Time", I was struck by one of the characters- an irritating peripheral character- who keeps showing up in the main protagonist's life. At a certain point, the protagonist realizes that there is a hidden meaning in his relationship with this person, that the person is a "living landmark" in his life, reappearing at odd times here and there, for no apparent good reason. He is just there, marking the passage of time.

I thought this idea was fascinating. I know the feeling of being with a person with whom I have nothing in common, and yet there they are, and there we are, together, sharing pieces of our lives. This is the person who seems to be at all the life cycle events, the person who calls to invite himself to stay, after twenty years of silence, the person who always seems to be there, and who seems to be a part of your life, but you have no idea why.

It is as if there is some larger plan being executed, and we are players playing our part in it, without knowing what it is. Or that these recurring people are sent to press phantom buttons we didn't know were there, because we have unresolved business from some past life, and we have to resolve it. It is as if the person is a test. If we pass, then they go away, (or our irritation goes away), and we have leapt over some spiritual hurdle. But if we fail, we get to take the test again. And again, and again.

At some point we have to be philosophical and say " yes, I am with you now, and there is a reason, though it is beyond me." (A stiff drink may help to encourage this outlook.) We have to accept our strange companions through life, our odd bedfellows, our wrong answers to the desert island question, "who would you pick to be with you on a desert island?' We muse and wonder, and learn the no doubt salutary lesson that must be lurking deep within the mystery of the deja vu, those oddball, recurring from left of field, characters in our lives.

This week's download is a song I wrote called, "Cigarette", and is inspired by this theme in Anthony Powell's great novel, "A Dance to the Music of Time".

The players are; Larry Klein on bass and keyboards, Dean Parks on guitar, Billy Preston on Hammond organ.