Listen to the Song:
“The Phoenix” was written by Ric Albano on his birthday in 2004 as a symbolic allegory of his return to making recorded music with the new Imaginary Lines, after an 8 year hiatus from any studio work. The original recording in 2005 was made during a time when three interconnecting albums were planned for the project and thus it included an “intro trail” meant to be a link from the final song of the the third album. Those plans changed and instead an intro song called “Ashes” was recorded for Imaginary Lines 33 in 2008, featuring harmonized backing vocals by the late great Janet Rains.
For the Nine Fine Lines version of “The Phoenix”, new lead vocals were recorded in 2016 and the “Ashes” intro section was combined to form one single track.
Musicians
Ric Albano – vocals, piano, synths, bass
Janet Rains – Backing and harmonized vocals
Bret Alexander – guitar
Ron Simasek – drums
Lyrics
10-9-8 begin the countdown, a few brief moments until we hit the ground
The world is shakin’, the levee’s breakin’
5-4-3 was it really meant to be? Too late now for reminiscing
The gloom is holding, the fate’s unfolding
10-9-8, no more time for the hate, we must rise from the ashes
It appeared you’d found your new direction, heading down the mines
Where you would pick for gold in dire perplexion disregarding all alternative signs
To a future wrought by burrowing down you’d resigned
Then sometime came some eccentric stranger, quite familiar yet not quite
Who harassed until you’d ogre danger and finally, you stepped out into the light
Those derivatives of naïveté you’d now fight
Your millstone is that of one self-carved with gaiety
But this lusus naturae must now be collapsed through rumpus mutiny
The rain falls down, but there’s no comfort in the cool
The wretched heat cannot be dampened by the pool
You break down, disintegrate, and break down
Refined into diminutive shapes, ordained reality, from this flame no escape
It appears you found a new direction, pointed towards the sky
Puissant with refreshed predilection, black elbows, white lightning in your eyes
From the serrated, glassy desert floor you now rise
© 2004-2018 Ric Albano and Cygnus Wave Records
