"Travel Baggage (Carry On)" ("I've Been Thinking..." THOUGHT PROCESS SERIES 3/12)

“I've Been Thinking...” behind the songs “THOUGHT PROCESS SERIES”
My latest full length album, “I've Been Thinking...” released on the Savannah based label DopeSandwich Records and Tapes May 3rd is a collection of concepts and narratives that I've written over the last few years featuring instrumental contributions from coast to coast and outside of the country as well. Looking over the collection I'd opine that it is some of my finest work to date (one would hope). What have you been thinking? Over 12 days I'll be releasing a behind-the-music sort of blurb for each track! If there are any questions or comments regarding the songs please submit them and I'll do my best to answer and fulfill them! I hope this series is of interest and that the music does something for you!


     Leading loosely thematically outward from our melancholy claustrophobic painting in “Zoom In (There's Life Here)” we embark on a quest in the third song “Travel Baggage (Carry On)”. I began to write parts of this song while I was on my first long tour with Alexa Dexa in 2013 (The “little piano, BIG MOUTH tour”). I distinctly remember coming up with much of what would become the first verse while waiting on a line to get into the famous venue Bluebird Cafe in Nashville (READ MY ACCOUNT OF THIS VISIT HERE) to perform at an open mic. I wanted to make a song that represented both my experiences as an artist and not along with my love of traveling. I think for many people, there is a magnetic pull to be active and to see the world and its people. For those who don't feel that, they probably haven't taken the plunge yet. I also wanted this song to express the mission and reason to journey as an artist. It's not a "give and take" relationship between the artist and the listener/watcher/supporter, its a "give and give."  Much of my 2012 record “The Inevitable Effort” centers around the paradoxical necessity of isolating oneself to making a project that you will eventually use to connect with the world in a figurative way. The step beyond that after the album's release is connecting with the world in a literal physical way when you travel,on a tour, the listeners that make up the crowds propel the performer to meet even more people on a fiscal and emotional support level. In this way, they are sharing their love of the artist with people they've never even met, by allowing them to go to the next place and meet new people and spread their message further.

     When I came home from tour and subsequently embarked on several other trips.  I also dealt with some interpersonal tempestuousness with significant others or potential significant others having issues with my desire to be away from home so often (or even being home but performing and rehearsing so frequently). Between this and seeing many other musicians and performers who travel FAR more than I do deal with those difficulties, I was compelled to write what became the second verse. Although I speak from my own situations and motives/feelings in this song, I am really also attempting an anthem or thesis statement/argument for all artists to speak with either society or their lovers who have presented them with unfair ultimatums.
As for the chorus, I also experimented on this song also with have a very “complex” chorus, with an odd pattern with many inner rhymes and feeling like it had twists and turns. I later ended up adding the parts that I sing the play on words “carry on” as a more “accessible chorus” but also to echo that incessant lure of the sirens of travel that we have that tells us to move forward and onward and outward into the world! The final chorus/bridge was one of the last things I'd written. I wanted to drive the point home, both as a thank you to the listeners, to everyone who allows me any of the opportunities to do what I do, to satisfy my artistic and wanderlusting urges by supporting and expressing love for what I do. I was definitely channeling a concluding feel of continuation from “This Is For” during writing this segment of the song. p.s. The opening sample is the most vulgar that this whole album gets and is from one of my favorite films “Good Will Hunting”. The song was produced by UK producer/rapper “Sik Sense” of the international collaborative rapper/producer duo Dyslexia and Sik Sense who I've collaborated with before. He was really generous and helpful with his time in crafting this beat and this is one of mine and DJ BMO 's favorite songs to perform!

Go travel immediately, for perspective, for the illuminating beauty and strangeness of mobile solitude as well as the opportunity to meet new people and take in new sites and learn of lifestyles unlike your own.  Live your life unapologetic for who you are and what you want.  If people in your life complain about your absence, it is a compliment.  I don't know that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I know that travel makes the heart grow larger, it is certainly a good indication that they miss you, remind them that it is a validating and good feature, that proximity and quantity of closeness doesn't define the quality or legitimacy of a friendship or relationship/companionship.  Traveling certainly improves your relationship with yourself, and in the similar vain to the mentality of  "love yourself to love others", having more awareness of self and fulfilling the soul's desires are paramount to a healthy and sincere/optimal union between yourself and others.

Thank you for reading and listening,
I love you truly folks,
-Bruce "AllOne" Pandolfo



Bonus Blurb:  "Between The Lines" (Links to the references)
I often weave  many references to books I read, people I've learned about or films I've watched into my lyrics.  In addition to this showing the influences of mine and being a fun way to cleverly carve new meanings into the titles and authors and performers whose work I've enjoyed, it is mostly an attempt to expose those who listen to my music to media that I've been inspired by in hopes that you may pursue them and will get something out the art that I've taken in. Here are links to a few people/things I reference in this song.  Enjoy!!

 J.R.R. Tolkien's -  The Hobbit
Mosquito Coast
Jack Kerouac - On The Road
Jon Krakauer - Into The Wild
Harry Houdini
Benny Hill
The Doors // Jim Morrison
Cormac McCarthy - The Road
Laurel and Hardy
Spaulding Gray




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