Green Eyed Radio liner notes
by Peter Mayer

"Green Eyed Prelude / Green Eyed Radio"
My songwriting partner Roger Guth walked in one day with this beautiful little instrumental piece. While on tour in beautiful downtown Cleveland I composed the lyric, completing the "Green Eyed Radio" song and creating the bookends to the album. The lyric was inspired by a National Public Radio story on a Brazilian trash collector that had a beautiful voice. A famous touring opera singer overheard him in an alley and took him under her wing coaching him on to successful singing career. The world has blue-eyed baseball players and brown-eyed trashman, so, it seemed to me.... plenty of room for a green-eyed radio. "And when the show is over, I'll sing to the stars, 'cause I know they will listen if you tell them who you are."

"All the Tea In China"
This song was written with Roger Guth and Russ Kunkel, who is one of my drummer heroes from the first time I heard James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James." A song about the seductions of having everything while still trying to hold on to your happiness. To prove once again; too much has never been enough.

"Shall We Dance"
This song was written as the first signs of the cold winter months were coming on. I would look out the window and dream up any sound or word that would keep me warm. In weather that prohibits even simple use of the fingers, dancing seemed to be the only way to survive.

"Send Me the Love"
This song was originally intended for Bonnie Raitt. The tune came to me on the 24th floor of the Rhiga Royal in midtown Manhattan and was finished with Roger Guth and Jay Oliver who arranged the strings and recorded the work, in Los Angeles. When Bonnie Raitt passed on it, I decided to go back and reclaim it for Green Eyed Radio.

"In the Meantime"
"In the Meantime" borrows an idea from a quote of John Lennon's; "Life is what happens to you while your busy making other plans." The idea continued on in my head.... love is what happens to you in the meantime. For all our best laid plans, along come the accidents, incidents, and many detours that will break your heart while leading you to an unexpected destination. It's a long long ride, but it might be the one your looking for is right by your side.

"The Onion"
The Onion is a bad dude who crashes the party for all the grandest of the food groups on the block. He's the cigar smokin', beet juice drinkin', mean cussin' veggie that comes to do a little truth telling among the beautiful peop... uh....vegetables. Fingers Taylor of the Coral Reefer Band added his fine blues harp to the track and fit the bill so well we dubbed him the "real life onion."

"Michaelangelo"
The idea for this song was born on a train going from Grand Central Station to Ossining to visit a sister in law. I turned the page of the magazine I was browsing to see a photo of a beautiful women caressing the David, the famous statue by Michaelangelo. It seemed the perfect metaphor for the search for perfect love at the close of this century. This song also fulfills a secret fantasy of mine to stay after hours in an art museum and hang around the personalities of the centuries, hearing the conversations the Van Goghs and Chegalls carry on while the guard gets his beauty sleep.

"Under Your Spell"
I had the pleasure of meeting one of my long time musical heroes, Joni Mitchell, in New Orleans a few years back. We played a few songs with her and then met at the Brazil Club for cocktails and dancing. New Orleans has the strange powers to change anybody into a sailor on shore leave for the night. Everytime I go back I fall under that spell.

"One and One Makes Three"
I've been around long enough to know that love is bad math. It sneers at all the rules and insists on confounding our good sense. But of course, still remains the most magnificent of all our frustrations.

"Suzannah"
People go to Key West, Florida for many reasons. Tourists divorcees, escapees, refugees, all are looking for a sun baked solution to their age old problems. For all the magic that you'll find in Key West the best show in town is still the sun fading in the western sky every evening in Mallory Square. A saxophonist friend of mine who played on the pier delivered a stirring rendition of "Oh Suzannah," just as the sun disappeared below the horizon. And for just a second the world slowed down. Young and old, local and tourist alike, all came together for a brief moment. That snapshot turned into an evening ritual and on into a song.

"Funny"
I had the Beatle's version of the classic "'Til There Was You" running through my head, and the words to this one came all of a sudden. The fire of a first love, while not the last will be remembered through almost every change to come.

"Blue River"
I was looking through some of Jimmy Buffett's nautical books while down in Key West and read that one of the names for the Gulf Stream was the Blue River. Living in the river city of St. Louis I have always been struck by the power of the Mississippi which every river east of the Rockies and west of the Appalachians empty into. From Mark Twain to the Underground Railroad it was depended on as the carrier of good as well as bad news, the artery of the country.