"Up Ahead" genre: Acoustic
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	It's all about growing up.
	CD: The Muse Tree   Label: Muse Tree Records Credits: Written and performed by Julian Rai, Michael Solomon. Copyright 2003 Julian Rai / Muse Tree Records, All Rights Reserved.
	Story Behind the Song As with the other songs on "The Muse Tree", "Up Ahead" has actually been around for awhile. Honestly, it's a revision of my first real song, written about a good friend and runningmate who left our hometown years ago. On this album, I chose to open it all up with this one, mostly because this story is really the beginning of it all -- both for me personally and professionally, as well as for the character in the Five Album Quinology, starting with "The Muse Tree". This song is where the character first begins to understand that moving away from home and engaging the world without the 'comfort' of parents would also include absolute and unexplainable, and sometimes sudden and undesireable, change. His friend leaving spurs this realization and sets the stage for the coming year, covered by this first album. "Up Ahead" was a good run in the studio and a breeze to get each take ... consequently, it was also one of the first tracks I recorded, so everything was still fresh and freshly motivated. The song went through one final rewrite to get to its current version, making sure that it stuck in its permanent form once the CD was cut and finished. Most of the trouble on this track, however, came from the Michael's percussion track and my piano track ... the heavy Djembe he brought for recording was impossible to compress. In the end, we settled on reducing the boominess of the dry take and applying resonance later in EQ and mastering. The piano track itself was probably the most fun ... and fitting -- most of the work in that came from deciding upon a final composition that would be simple enough not to take over the song, yet would add its own unique flavor and hook to the voice of the track. Fitting, because I started my professional career as a pianist, not a guitarist, so opening up an album containing songs from that era of my life with a piano track seemed like the perfect transition. Lyrics Up Ahead D Standard Tuning / C II Lyrics And Music By Julian Rai Copyright 2003 Julian Rai, Muse Tree Records V I Woke at 5am and now it's Six in the morning, huddled like Seven heads hangin', walkin'-- Hawaii was callin' out to Ryn: Who was the master of the task at hand The moving hand; The sleight-of-hand that was the time. V II We took those moments that were Creased and were folded, held them in Palms that were sweating And forgetting. His lover Josie'd run away She turned 16 that day -- And I promised Ryn that I'd look after her. But I couldn't find her some time afterward. B I And with that amulet I gave you -- I didn't expect that it would save you, man... No, It was just made of the stuff that made you, Ryn. V III Light had a tendency to curve in this town And it had wrapped the dawn around us halfway down. I turned to look at you as you watched the ground ... Your eyes goodbye-ing to the pavement. V IV For most of us you were the independent one; First one to leave the classroom,` First one to strike out on your own ... And now you're the first of us to travel on -- Yet I could tell that you were unfamiliar With permanently stepping out of childhood. B II And on that paper that I gave you About the changes that surround you, man... I swear I wouldn't ever wish that upon you CH And up ahead There's a bus waitin' to take you home. So the six of us walked back alone. Just as the tendrils of the dawn shone on us all, We watched the patterns of our lives fall. And with this feeling that the change has gotta come, The walk back was not an easy one. CRI We were all handshakes and machismo -- Me ripping pages from my notebook. The necklace I'd worn since I met you I felt driven to present you. And once the bus was in the distance, No one here has seen you since -- Most of us no longer friends. B III / RES We knew we might be seperated. What we were all thinking, no one said it. That Suddenly our lives were complicated. V V We herded back past where the city lie; Past all the gravel trucks and traffic lights. Past all the busy, bustling passers-by ... No one seemed to notice you were missing. V VI Soon thereafter we all parted ways. And in walked the summer where the troubles came But I walked stubbornly on anyway -- Just so long as I was moving. B IV Seems like everyone in Dayton Is built on spit and hesitation But we were the kids of the creation [Chorus]

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