This song grew from the kind of memory that stays with you - the quiet moments after loss, the empty chair at the kitchen table, and the way families carry those echoes forward. It leans into a warm, nostalgic musical style inspired by the sounds that shaped those early memories, blending soft, expressive balladry with a timeless emotional tone. At its heart, it’s story‑telling music - a reflection on love, grief, and the small spaces where we still feel the people we’ve lost. If you’ve ever held onto a moment like that, I hope this song finds you... Amazon Music
This song has many different influences and emotional feelings that I tried to incorporate into the creation of it, starting with a time in my own life, although somewhat concerned about coming across as morbid, or like, being construed as living in the past, or something like that. (But hey, that's part of what happens when you get older, for most people anyway. You start reminiscing allot more in relation to certain things). But I think its worth noting in some way never-the-less, as it is a big part of the inspiration to the feeling of the track to some extent, lyrically and musically. So, much of it is really like a collage, pasting pieces together to form a mosaic, if you will; starting with a much younger time in my life, back in New Jersey, when my father had passed, and my Mother, sister, and me, sitting at the kitchen table, with the chair by the window, where my father had sat, no longer there. It was a very difficult time, of course, as it would be for any family, and had always wanted to capture those deep emotions and feelings, like an artist painting on a canvas. Fast forward to a person and his family I had to come to be very close friends with when we had moved to Long Island, who had a similar and unusual loss in his own family many years later. In fact, in addition to his own father's rather unusual passing, his father's brother, who lived next door, all of a sudden also passed away only about several weeks later! Needless to say, it was a VERY sad time for all involved. And I'm sure, even somewhat traumatic for both families, as I myself could relate. (And therefore, could feel that much more deep empathy for their loss). This is my way of documenting those events through music and the color of sound and lyric, extending it even beyond our own personal loss, in story form. As far as the mosaic thing, yea, it is a mosaic in more ways then one, as I was experimenting with so many different things during the recording, like cutting, copying, and pasting the sh*t out of the files and putting them back together again to match the BPM of the track and the like, and then using so many plugins (it wasn't funny) to attempt to keep the fidelity of the recording from suffering too much in the process…
But anyway, getting back to the influence and inspiration for the song itself, there were some unusual synchronicities? (for lack of a better word) such as the pretty popular TV show that all of sudden appeared back then called: “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir." Also, the movie “Carousel”, that my mother was very fond of. Of all names for a movie, wow! As that was really not the influence to create the idea for Carousel Records. Total coincidence. Or is it? I don't know man, but it is kind of extraordinary(?) now that I think about it. But anyway, these were all some of the influences and inspirations I tried to incorporate into the song in some way, as well as attempting to incorporate some of the Pop music that was happening around that time, especially in relation to the songs we would hear, when my mother ( a music lover herself, as my father) would turn on the radio, while my sister and me got ready for school in the morning. So many classic songs were released around that time, one pop hit in particular (among many) that had a profound influence on this song was a beautiful recording by The Stylistics that I thought was a really emotionally charged and subtly powerful tune called: (Last Night) I Didn't Get To Sleep At All. Well anyway, the song ‘Yesterday In My Kitchen’ is like a snap shot in time, or a snapshot of more then just several periods in my life that I will never forget, and almost pure nostalgia put to music. And it was another song, that sorta like wrote itself, and something of a gift from the Universe, when you consider its potential, at least…
I wanted to pull on the heart strings of God himself, to have mercy on this poor and dying planet, and to grant justice to the righteous, the broken hearted, and the oppressed. Such was part of the goal of this song. I acknowledge, it was a lofty goal for sure…
I can still remember singing this song to myself, while revisiting our old home town of Fairlawn, New Jersey, while walking down the same block me and my sister used to walk to catch the Bus that would drive us to school. Another great song, released during that period in American music history that became like a Pop Ballad Standard, and also an inspiration for the song…