Set Free

Love so tough
11:11
This was my home (the promised land)
Suzannah
Send out the love
Remember the moon
How long before I'm found
Angels watch over me

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Set Free is named after a recurring phrase in several of the song lyrics, with no small connection to George’s personal and professional liberations he experienced during its production. Here is a mature, intense, eclectic mix of musical architecture, just left-of-mainstream, combining in daring new proportions his trademark contrast of quiet/powerful, light/dark, joyful/brooding qualities.

This collection of vocal and instrumental pieces George wrote when he went to Japan. Set Free may seem a departure for those who have come to know his instrumental work, but he's also a vocalist, and like in the old days, he does virtually all the singing.

Love So Tough_

The unmistakable theme here is the special invincibility of real relationship and true love. Always worth having, and always worth working for. An outright smash hit as far as I’m concerned. I always say that you can’t keep a great song down.

I don’t always know what my songs are about. I think 11:11 suggests that we periodically experience moments of truth and revelation…whether we want to experience them or not. They usually come when we least expect. It is usually wise to act on them when they do come. I happen to be drawn to the number 11; the actual hour is of course different for everyone.

Many of the tracks on this album are derived from real-life situations, and often these situations were painful. Here’s an example - a “homesick” song about me longing for the wooded, temperate terrain of Bucks County, PA, and for the well-rooted family and friends who still lived there. Meanwhile, as I wrote this from another state I’d moved to, I was enduring the death-rattle of a relationship. Who says angst doesn’t beget creativity?

This one’s about the relationship just mentioned. I altered the story a bit to make the song work better…but it’s still true, complex, and rather sad. I’ve always held that in a breakup it’s at least as hard for the one leaving as for the one being left.

A snappy love-and-peace number. Those of you who know me personally know my politics. Whatever was he trying to say with that ‘New World Order’ bit, anyway? Hate is not the solution, but don’t take it from me. Take it from Albert Einstein. He said it too, a bunch of times, and he was no dummy. Let’s live smart.

An oriental-spiced piece which practically wrote itself. Framed in a lullaby style, “Moon” was written for my son Corey, now a young man with a very old, gentle soul. I was facing a long, difficult separation from him via a temporary move to Japan. It’s the same moon, no matter where in the world we are…

A re-write from a much older version. This is a painful recollection of a parting with my first love -- a separation destined to be long, but happily not permanent. In the meantime, what was left for me? Over the years I’ve become quite enchanted with the Beach Boys’ production values, especially on the less popular albums. “How Long” humbly tips the producer’s hat to Brian and Carl…there will never be a sound quite like theirs.

A lovely but complicated woman once introduced me to the real possibility of angels working and moving amongst us. In return for that gift, I wrote her this song. This was her story, a difficult one at times; fortunately her angels were there. I envisioned “Angels” as one of those Big Ballad/Big Finish songs like Celine Dion would do, which I guess is why it’s at the end of the set. It's just a little too real for Vegas, though.

George Wallace

georgewallace@airbornmusic.com