http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/thomaspaulmurphy
Plantation Album Notes:
Vocals recorded live. Song’s for those of us who feel like we work on a plantation and get whipped and beaten daily. Therefore, they lyrics are whatever they Holy Spirit provided me at such times.
Copyright 2011 Thomas Paul Murphy
About the cover:
These flowers were planted in the flower garden of a health food store where I bought my lunch one day after fishing. They seemed to be expensive looking because of their pretty blue flowers. I looked at them and thought, “That beautiful blue flower plant sure does look healthy and the color reminds me of pretty blue eyes. That is one of the prettiest flowers I have seen.” Two days later I rode my bicycle down to the beach at night. A reggae band was playing. I woke up this morning and thought, “I hope those pretty flowers on the cover of my CD aren’t ones that are drug related. Then I thought, “Journey to Colorado” really tells how I feel about drugs. Then I thought, “I hope people buy this CD just because they see that flower and it is drug related because I will sell more CD’s” And then I thought, “They will hear that song ‘Journey to Colorado’ and be transformed into righteous people who don’t do drugs. Anyone who has read my writing knows that I am antidrug in America. My antidrug slogan is, ‘They give you the drugs and then they try and rape you.’”
Then I thought that the album title, “Plantation” and the flower image on the cover together; seem to suggest I say we plant drugs.” No. The title Plantation means every day I feel like I am a slave who works on a plantation. I am also a body builder and health food enthusiast. To me those flowers look like healthy blue eyes. And when I took that photograph I thought those flowers are so pretty I wish I could afford to plant them, because they look expensive (like orchids) and hard to grow…So I chose the picture too go with the title because it was farm and growing related and I thought, “My photograph had value in it as my songs do also- I could sell photograph like that for $150. Maybe I should not be giving such a great image away on a CD cover.” Then I thought, “They are such beautiful flowers, that image will sell the CD (this was before I thought it might be drug related.) Then I had to make a commentary on drugs, ‘No life of any American should be so miserable that they feel they need to take drugs. Original slave traders fed sugar, today’s slave traders feed drugs in many forms.”
To me singing is a form of cathartic self entertainment and a good substitute for any drug you could take. Here is another slogan, “Try singing.”
About the song Shewood Smoochie, it is a song about a nun who subjectively looked the other way when bad things happened. She had what I would call an inflamed personality- anusitis.
Oh, about the flowers I called the store this morning and Maria who works there told me they were called Sea Holly or Eryngium. We shared a moment of levity together when I told her what my concern was.
Thomas Paul Murphy
Copyright 2011 Thomas Paul Murphy
No comments:
Post a Comment