This is The Flood Inside. I can't remember exactly when I wrote this one. I only know that's it's been with me for a long time and that it was inspired by readings and meetings with mystics and monks, and my lifelong reluctance to answer the call. And also in here are all those summer nights as a kid at the Jersey shore when I used to go alone to the beach. The boardwalk was all light and noise in the distance. And now and then some hooded huddled people passed me by and disappeared. But I just sat there on the sand meditating on the dark wall of waves and water ahead of me and the little lights on the horizon and the stars and sometimes the moon. And I'd sing to myself some bits of a song. Years later, I read Whitman's "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," and I resonated with this "man, yet by these tears a little boy again, throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves," listening for "the lone singer," the bird crying out over the water for his lost mate. I added some of that music to my song.
We shot most of this video at a place called Napatree Point in Rhode Island. We went down there without much of a plan, only that we wanted to try to capture some of the feeling of what I just described. Everything aligned that night. The public beach was closed, but then we found this special spot that we didn't even know existed; it felt like we were guided there. And the moon rose up over the lighthouse, and the moment felt just right. And what's more, I later realized that when we were looking out over the water, we were looking right across the Sound to Whitman's "Paumanok."
We released this song as part of our 2024 EP Hide and Seek. It features Brian Shankar Adler on percussion, Dan Fabricatore on bass, Zack Cross on piano, Kalidasa Joseph Getter on flute, Katherine Oakes on vocals and shruti box, and me on guitar, vocals, keys, and programming. It was mixed by Oz Fritz and mastered by Garrett Haines. You can stream and download this song and the rest of the EP here.
This is Surrender. I wrote this one about that time, in the early days of our relationship, when my now-wife Kate and I tried living apart, me in Brooklyn and Kate in the Berkshires. I rented a room in a Prospect Heights apartment, though I never got far enough to furnish it, not even with a bed. I packed a small bag, and Kate brought me to the station. And it was just awful saying goodbye. Everything in me was fighting against this decision, but I pushed myself to go. I thought I had to. It was one of those disembodied ideas. I got there, feeling lost, spent a sleepless night in a sleeping bag on the floor, and as soon as the sun came up, I called Kate and said, “This isn’t gonna work. Meet me at the station. I’m coming back.” And in a few hours, there she was on the platform as I stepped off the train. Best reunion ever. This was released as part of our 2016 EP Between the Earth and the Sky, which you can find here.
Ten years ago, my partner Kate and I released an EP called Between the Earth and the Sky, which included this song, Closer to Home. To this day, it amazes me that one of my musical heroes, Jon Anderson of Yes, sings with us on this track, especially when I think about how it all came about. When I was writing the song, back around 2012, part of what inspired me was a Yes song called "Wonderous Stories," written by Jon. What I've always seen in that song is a desire to be transported to a dreamlike otherworld by the power of stories and songs. In my song, I wanted to express the desire to get back home again after being off on such a journey. I wanted to celebrate the simple joy of being among familiar comforts and old friends, after the adventure. And this is what came through. And especially in the lines about "words of wonder" and "stories," I felt there was a connection to Jon's song in what I wrote. While recording this song, our friend Jemal Wade Hines, who produced the project, commented that it sounded like something he could hear Jon singing. And I said, 'Well, yeah, wouldn't that be great?' As it happened, at that moment, Jemal was working with Jon on another project, and so he sent it to him. Some time passed, but then, one day, like a voice from beyond, he returned these vocal harmony tracks to add to our recording! I felt like I had recieved a blessing, and I’m grateful to Jon for this and for all the years of inspiration, and to Jemal for making the connection.
This recording also features beautiful harmonies by Jemal and his partner Moksha Sommer, as well as bamboo flute by George Tortorelli, percussion by Chuck Mauk, bass by Dan Walters, mandolin and guitar by Jemal, vocals by Katherine Oakes, and piano, synth, guitar and vocals by me. It was mixed by Oz Fritz and mastered by Bernie and Dale Becker. It was released as part of our 2016 EP Between the Earth and the Sky, which you can find here.
Here's Before Dawn. This one goes back to 2013, when Kate and I released our full-length album First Flight. But the song goes back much further than that. I wrote it in the mid-90s, when I was about 21. It was inspired by the first time I spent a night outdoors in the woods. Growing up in the New Jersey suburbs, I had never been camping, never experienced that kind of immersion in "the wild." And I felt very unsafe, with only a thin vinyl wall between me and the many (imagined) dangers of the woods. So I stayed up most of the night listening for noises, ready to pounce if the need arose. It didn't. What I noticed instead was a revelation, because I had never experienced the gradual transition of night into day while out in the midst of it. At some point, hours into my vigil, everything got quiet and still, like the feeling after you inhale. I looked out and saw the first faint outlines of trees. Then I heard a bird. And another and another. Then the exhale: the breeze in the leaves. I unzipped the tent flap and walked down by the water. I saw an otter swimming in slow circles in the mist. And something came to me, a peaceful kind of feeling and a strange sense of belonging more than I ever felt at home. So I started singing this song and later wrote it down, and I've been singing it ever since.
Kate and I shot this video when we were living in the Berkshires, in magical Tyringham, on a green spring day in 2013. Looking at it now makes me miss it, like waking up from a dream. But that's really what this song was always about: a home outside of everything, that you only get a glimpse of in the space between night and day.
The recording features Zack Cross on piano; Justin Hillman on acoustic guitar; Melissa Hyman on cello; Katherine Oakes on vocals; and me on vocals, acoustic guitar, synths, and bamboo flute. It was mixed by Oz Fritz, mastered by Garrett Haines, and released on our debut album First Flight, which you can find here.
This song came to me back in 2023 as I was reeling from the death of a sweet and special friend, Oscar, our Great Pyrenees. Singing it over and over again in my head during the weeks after he died helped me to get through that awful time. So I think of it as a song about getting through grief. But it's also about refusing to let the hurts and wounds and traumas we suffer separate us from the Love that lives inside. It's about fiercely reclaiming our light from the shadows that would snuff it and finding solace for the soul in music and nature and the presence of a Friend.
This one features Brian Shankar Adler on percussion, Dan Fabricatore on bass, Zack Cross on piano, Jemal Wade Hines and Moksha Sommer on backing vocals, Clara Kennedy and Claudia Chopek on strings, Katherine Oakes on vocals, me on acoustic guitar, synth, bamboo flute and vocals, string arrangement by David Nagler, mixed by Oz Fritz, and mastered by Garrett Haines. We released it as part of our 2024 EP Hide and Seek, which you can find here.
I wrote this song years ago, inspired by a road trip along the Hudson River, up Meads Mountain in Woodstock, NY, and back down to New Jersey, with stops at the KTD Tibetan Buddhist Temple, the Church of the Holy Transfiguration of Christ-on-the-Mount, and the shrine to Walt Whitman at Bear Mountain. I worked in the spirit of those places and the music of the river; the autumn sun; the falling leaves; the apple trees; the poetry of Whitman, Tennyson and Frost; the engine hum (hymn?); Van Morrison on the radio; and the open road, always the open road running through it all.
My partner Kate and I recorded this version of the song with Tim Peck and some of his students at Pomfret School, along with Gregoire Pearce on nylon string guitar. It was mixed by Justin Hillman and mastered by Garrett Haines. We released it as part of our 2015 EP called Evergreen, which you can find here.
This one's very special to me. Back in 2009 I released an album called Heart Broken Open which included this song, Secrets. As I was working on it, my now-wife Kate came into my life, and immediately—like, on our first date!—we started collaborating. That night, we brainstormed a music video for this song, with Kate asking for extra napkins from the bartender so she could draw out our ideas. Those eventually made it into a sketchpad as we continued to develop the concept with hopes that, one day, we could do a full production. But that fell by the wayside as other things took precedence, and it remained just a series of concept drawings in the back of one of Kate's old sketchbooks. Revisiting the artwork, I felt that this one was worth sharing, and that maybe those early drawings are how it was always meant to be made. So here it is, the very first Oakes and Smith collaboration: song by me, art by Kate. The song features drums by Jason Schultheis; electric guitar by Clayton Colwell; backing vocals by Luthea Salom; lead vocals, acoustic guitar, synths and bass by me; produced by me and Thom Soriano, mixed by D. James Goodwin, and mastered by Garrett Haines