The story behind “Jump with Me”

This song took about 6 months to write. Actually, I came up with the initial idea one day in the car. I had my digital recorder with me and sang the intro verse from thoughts spinning around my head. Then I put it aside until about 5 months later. Once I got back to it in front of the piano, it really just spilled out of me in a few minutes.

The lyric went through a few revisions believe it or not they were even more heady than they came out (you know more vague references).

The song was born from my mothers death. She’s the teacher I mention, and though she never said “how could you not know this day was going to come?”, its something I felt. I vividly remember our last time together. She was in the hospital and after being unconscious for a couple of weeks, she had this great come back. She was awake, aware and getting stronger every day. My brothers and I were taking turns visiting with my dad. I had this great visit, she still hadn’t gotten her voice back yet but during the visit she mouthed more than once how happy she was that we all came to see her (two of my brothers were there with me, my wife and my dad). I drove from Albany home to Boston that night and in the morning I got the call. It was a shock after her having done so well. It makes you realize that no one can take that jump with you, at least physically. The song was recorded in my home studio. I performed and recorded all the parts, starting with the drum tracks (synth – not a real drum set). Then I put down a reference track of piano and vocals. Once I completed the bass track I went back and recorded the piano under the original vocals. Then came the organ and synth-pad track (I played them at the same time onto the same stereo tracks) and finally I sang (in a few takes) the final vocal track to replace the reference track.