This is a song I wrote for my wonderful wife Barbara after our first date.

Written and recorded in Warren Road Studios in September 1987. Barbara and I had been flirting a bit that summer, but on Friday, September 11th, we went out on our first date, along with her 7-year-old son Eric. We went up to Taughannock Falls State Park and skipped rocks on Cayuga Lake from the point, then walked up the gorge trail to Taughannock Falls. We then had dinner at The Glenwood Pines. We had a really good evening, but then, as I wrote in my journal, "I was burning when I got home." My housemates were all out so I played piano in the dark in the studio, and found this piece. It's maybe a little inspired from frequently playing The Who's "Love Reign O'er Me", which is also almost all played on the black keys, and it also has some complex chords I learned from listening to a lot of Todd Rundgren, and one little interlude riff (during the words "breathe in and out") I might have borrowed from my older brother (from "the only thing left"?). I don't know if I actually recorded the piano that night. But the next day I wrote lyrics to go with the piano part I'd written. Also from my journal: "It's the lustiest lyric I've ever written, very sexual, passionate... obsessed."

Recording notes: I recorded the piano first, with two mics on my folks' nice Yamaha upright piano, the one I'd first learned to play on at age 7. Then I flipped the 4-track cassette over and recorded a guitar solo (my Les Paul Deluxe through my Fender Twin Reverb) as I listened to the piano playing backwards. I think in my head I was hearing violins and cellos, but backwards guitars were the closest I could get in those days. Then I recorded the vocal, with a digital delay. This is on the album Warren Road Studios.

Thanks for listening!

-Andy

desire

if you are listening
close your eyes
and open up
your mind, sail free
see the worlds inside
the color and the heat
I would love
to meet you there
we will swim in dark clouds
I will dive
into you
    we will fly on fire
    in wave after wave
    of warm rain
    naked lightning
    as our orbits collide
    exploding
    we stop breathing
    then in ecstacy
    breathe in and out
    fall asleep with me

©1987 by Andy Wyatt
12 September 1987