Album tracks are:
- Overture
- Welcome to Theater
- Childhood Books
- Nightmare
- Invictus
- Words of Love
- Summer
- If
- Winter
- If (Radio Mix)
Album Credits are:
Stanley Whitaker: vocals
Michael (Misha) Shengaout: keyboards, samples
Jeff McGahren: guitars, organ solo (3, 7)
Dave De Marco: bass, percussion (10)
Marc Norgaard: drums, playing Evans Drum Heads
Betty Seni: vocals (7)
Inna Satunovsky: piano (8, 10)
The Fauxharmonic Orchestra: brass (9), string quartets (6, 9)
Produced: Michael (Misha) Shengaout
Mixed and Mastered: Brandt Fincher
Album Art & Design: Maria Kozlova www.mkgrafix.com
Album Lyrics
OVERTURE
Music: Michael (Misha) Shengaout
Instrumental
WELCOME TO THEATER
Music/Lyrics: Michael (Misha) Shengaout
Welcome, My Friend
To the theatrical event
We’re glad you could come.
You are the stage,
You’re the fool and the sage,
The altar and the lamb.
Somewhere around
May spectators be found
It’s you, or is it us?
So deliver your line
While you’re sipping your wine,
And who knows? You may bring down the house.
Eat, drink and be merry tonight,
Sing your life like a song,
Dance on the table when the music is right,
And we will just play along.
Travel along
Through the circle of songs
Beyond your daily strife
To where your wounds shall be bound
And the laughter’s abound
And your act becomes life.
Eat, drink and be merry tonight,
Sing your life like a song,
Dance on the table when the music is right,
And we will just play along.
CHILDHOOD BOOKS
Music/Lyrics: Michael (Misha) Shengaout
Our childhood was ruled
By the books on our shelves,
With the knights of the past
Sacrificing themselves
For the pride and the honor.
So the battles of old
Were making us stronger,
Were making us bold,
You remember, My Friend,
You remember?
Doctors patched our scratches,
Mothers patched our coats,
But we kept on our matches
And fights till it hurt,
We were knights in white armor,
We were aces of skies,
Books like nothing thereafter
Could get us to fly.
So we climbed up the hill,
Often scared and cold,
And we never admitted
Inner terror untold,
And the foes were defeated,
And the pledges were said,
And we lived on the pages
Of the novels we read.
You remember, my friend,
How we used to defend
The ideals of ours
The childhood has lent?
How we used to be sure
There is black and there’s white,
That there is a simple cure
For every possible plight.
You remember, My Friend,
You remember?
You remember denying
Compromises of soul?
You remember first lying?
It was seemingly small…
But it led to forgetting,
Pledges were taken back,
So you slowly, but surely,
Started losing the track.
All the games that we played,
And the heroes we prayed,
All the poor defended,
And the beauties we saved,
All new planets discovered,
And ordeals disdained,
All the majesty cherished –
Thrown out all the same.
You remember the girl
Living right down the street?
You remember cold ice
In your chest when you’d meet?
You remember first asking
Her out for a date,
Being scared and hoping
That she would consent?
That good old Volkswagen
Which dad let you drive,
The ice-cream, the parking,
Your kisses, your life?
Our hearts were still loving
But love was doomed from the start
Our minds were rejecting
This romantical part
We trashed our feelings
To serve common sense,
We moved to big cities
And the race would commence.
But we’d vaguely remember
And always would miss
That “bug” with bumped fender
And the joys of first kiss.
Where’s that girl from next door,
Whom you kissed in that car?
Did she marry for money
Sacrificing her heart?
Do you think she remembers?
Or you think she forgot,
How to love with no reason,
With no doubt or back thought?
Oh, My Friend, do you think
She remembers?
Do you think she remembers
Simple pleasures of life?
Do you think she is dead inside?
Or you think she’s alive?
Anyway, doesn’t matter,
Days of past won’t return,
Friends of childhood are scattered,
Dreams of young days are gone.
But, Friend, you can make a try
Resurrecting the flame
Though it won’t be as high
And it won’t be the same,
You will feel so much better
You will feel young again.
So don’t let your heart settle
Turn the wheels, light the flame
NIGHTMARE
Music: Jeff McGahren, Michael (Misha) Shengaout
Lyrics: Michael (Misha) Shengaout
The demons of my past have crept
Under the cover of the night
Waiting to snatch me from my bed
Into the place where they abide.
I’m dreaming and the dream is dark.
The water flows like liquid oil
When suddenly the demons start
Pulling me down with their coils.
My lips are frozen with the fear,
And neither hand nor foot would move
And then the pallid light appears
The Midnight Sun, the deathly Moon.
Shall I surrender to the night
And let the waters take me in?
There is no help within a sight
How can I fight within my dream?
INVICTUS
Music: Michael (Misha) Shengaout
Lyrics: William Henley, 5th verse by Michael (Misha) Shengaout
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
But will you tread your path alone
Or risk the pain the love may bring
For it may bring you high or low,
And make you either cry or sing.
WORDS OF LOVE
Music/Lyrics: Michael (Misha) Shengaout
Oh, the words of love… in love the words are moot, the utterances lost in twilight,
And twilight lost until the sun above
Has brought you back to life,
Brought you back to life.
Then your enchanted reason,
Ahead of daily strife,
Ahead of daily strife
Is giving up its freedom and defenses, accepting passionate, transcendent might
Of giving up yourself to the words of love.
In rhyme or prose they well within
And like the creek becoming flood they overcome
All well-established banks of clear reason,
And float the boats of happiness, or wrecking ships of some
On the shores of the words of love…
Hmm, the words of love… the words in love are moot, in love the words are lost in moonlight,
And moonlight lost when sun comes up above
And brings you back to life,
Brings you back to life.
Then un-believing reason,
Instead of daily strife,
Instead of daily strife
Surrenders to your feelings and your senses, accepting passionate, transcendent might
Of giving up yourself to the words of love.
SUMMER
Music: Jeff McGahren, Michael (Misha) Shengaout
Lyrics: Michael (Misha) Shengaout
It is the happy August of our love
The time is ripe for harvesting the fields
Heat is not more, the warmth is all we have,
Enough to be content in our needs
The food for thought as good as meals you cook
The house you made home where comfort reigns,
The children who inherited your looks,
They are the landmarks of our winding ways.
Summer of love,
Yellow sun the skies over
Center of life,
You are mine, I am yours always
Feeling your joy and your pain,
You are verse and refrain.
Your kisses are as warm as our walks,
Walks in the park which started shedding leaves.
I never thought I could enjoy our talks
As much as the embraces that you give.
Summer of love,
Yellow sun the skies over
Center of life,
You are mine, I am yours always
Feeling your joy and your pain,
You are verse and refrain.
But children, children, what will be your path?
How will you find the road toward your home?
If only I could give you my advice,
If only I could pass you what I learned…
IF
Music: Michael (Misha) Shengaout
Lyrics: Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you.
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies.
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart, your nerve, your sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
WINTER OF LIFE
Music: Tal Babitzky, Michael (Misha) Shengaout
Lyrics: Michael (Misha) Shengaout
Short is the winter day and long is cold, dark night,
White is the sparkling snow and black are crows in flight,
And even though the river flows
Faster every day that goes
In our life
You and I are not alone,
We are wiser, we have grown
Our children they have flown
To the skies above
But they’re always with us,
And our love,
Is always with us
That’s enough
For the
Winter of life,
Silver moon in the skies over
Center of life
You are mine, I am yours always
Feeling your joy and your pain
You are verse and refrain.
To be the one who will not be afraid to live
Until both you and I have nothing left to give
Until the sound of our music is gone,
And the trees have turned to stone
And the night set in,
Wise one fears not the dark
Matters not how cold or stark
Snow is covering the park
Where new journeys begin
See the children playing
Their dreams are
The wings that take them
To the lands were
You and I have
Never been,
My Friend!
IF (Radio Mix)
Music: Michael (Misha) Shengaout
Lyrics: Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you.
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies.
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart, your nerve, your sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!