The following is an excerpt from my reverie on Our Times Now to be found at guidoworld.com on the Edge of Eden CD in the music section.

The musical instruments unfurl the song’s ambiance from its beginning to the end. The first thing that is heard is a funky walking guitar lick, which is gritty and persistent. When the lumbering bass enters you can begin to feel the street on a stiflingly hot summer day. The marimba lets you know that there is activity in the neighborhood but this activity gets swallowed up in the glare of the heat. The flute, like the vocals, are sad and stilted. The brightness of the sky takes the color away from the environment leaving a grayish haze on all that is viewed.

In the first verse, the vocalist walks down this bright and dingy street and talks of how hard it is to stay positive in this environment. The strain of the desperation has him hunch over as if that will protect and shield from him the rancor of the streets. His faith, his hope, and his love are in desperate need of restoration.

In the first refrain, he shouts out his dejection and personal humiliation. The streets have made him old and set in his ways way before his time. Outwardly, his life moves at a crawl, inwardly he feels as if he has been incessantly running in a race with no finish line. The haunting chorus that accompanies the vocalist in this section emotes a fatalistic depression that pervades his thoughts, while the sax and guitar sprout forth their anger and a sense of resolve. This emotional integrity is what he knows he must tap into to motivate him to bust out of his depressed complacency.

The second verse has him deal with some of the people who make up the street. He looks around and sees no one move on, no one escape the constriction of the neighborhood. A wino approaches him and tries to panhandle some money just as he has almost every other day. Just like the music, he continues to walk and slowly push on. As he continues to walk he begins to realize that he cannot look to others to supply him with freedom. He should push on and the others who also feel oppressed will join him in making things happen. He knows all that his neighbors need is a voice to speak with, and he can be that voice.

The movement that ends the song has determination and pride. The rolling drums provide the power to the marching backbeat. The flute becomes spritely and optimistic and the vocalist offers his hands to others while singing words of unity. He states that “our time is now”, and begins to try to make freedom a part of his life.........

Go to Guidoworld.com to read the rest.