‘Down The Road And Far Away’ is an exquisite album, overflowing with the yin and yang and salt and pepper of a musical and literate personality whose creative juices are flowing. The over-riding mood is one of gleaming optimism, belying the witty fatalism of many of the lyrics. The performances are built around Lyle’s astounding vocal sound. His timbre is golden, but his inflections and phrasing are blue. Most of the melodies are beautiful, and when they are not, it’s because the songs don’t want them to be.Instrumentally, this is an acoustic guitar album, despite the presence of two tracks using keyboards. I would suspect these recordings ‘Centres’ and ‘the Camel’s Back’ are from an earlier era, but the liner notes are uninformative. There is an edge to the vocal attack on these two songs that sounds and feels much younger than the other world-weary and lower-pitched vocalizations.‘Down The Road And Far Away’ is book-ended by two extraordinary tracks. The opening song is ‘Just My Kind Of Girl,’ a joyful, if opaque come-on, stuffed with ironic asides and two gorgeously panned acoustics, one finger-style and the other flat-picked. It sounds as though Lyle played them both on the same guitar. The other-worldly chorus is eminently singable, if you can stifle your laughter-‘There ain’t no doubt about itShe’s just my kind of girlToo bad she lives so far awayShe’s half asleep and far too deepInto this crazy worldThere ain’t no doubt about itShe’s just my kind of girl’The closing track is ‘Way Past Now.’ I cried when I first heard it, and it has been a very long time since I’ve wept upon hearing a song. That is in itself a sad admission for me. Perhaps it’s my Catholic upbringing, but I could not help but interpret this composition as a direct attack on a ‘religious’ hierarchy so corrupt it would turn a blind eye to rampant abuse of its most vulnerable parishioners. This is the third verse- ‘Way past now past the trampled vowsAnd the pleasure that is cruelSome old man with an empty handSpeaks the language of a fool’The sound of the guitars on this track creates a sonic image of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza mounting the first of many hills at sundown. I hear spurs jangle, and leather creak while morons speak. And best of all, there is the chorus, addressed to the patron saint of virgins Agnes-‘I’m feeling helpless, AgnesAnd a little reckless tooTake me down your garden pathAnd I will go with you’And I went with John Lyle on his musical adventure and found a new companion for the recordings I treasure. ‘Down The Road And Far Away’ is an album of substance and joy and despair and outrageous laughter. It is laid back in its rhythms and tempos, and, with repeated listenings, I found that, time and again, it had laid me out with killer lines that hit unknown targets within. As with the best of folk blues, I can feel the heart of one musician and poet beating his own time.Heartily recommended!-Keithly O’ConnerBio-Headed for a career as an English professor in the mid 1960’s, John Lyle was ‘broadsided’ by Bob Dylan and The Beatles. His degree went out the window, and so did he, playing in a series of bands and then performing on Canadian network television and radio as a solo act. He was also signed to two record labels during this era, but realized that because of his highly sensitive nature he was not cut out for the performing life.John returned to his home in the Vancouver area, and devoted himself to his family, supporting them with a career that may have been more dangerous than the perfomance stage. He became a postman. John Lyle’s wonderful body of work is evidence of a life lived on the streets and in the home, filled with all the love and loss and joy and despair that are part and parcel of being alive. The songs are vital, not written to imitate a commercial trend or to fulfil a contract, but to reflect the intensity of experience and to remain sane. Feedback -'John's songs are amazing!' Frazee Ford (The Be Good Tanyas),'We love John Lyle. We listen to him all the time.' The Sumner Brothers,'There's lots of nice stuff on there!' Paul Rodgers (Bad Company; Free; Queen),‘Magnificent!’ The late Robert Altman’s word for John Lyle’s music,'John Lyle will take you gently to your safe place, and then sneak up on you with a song as uncompromisingly ferocious as a grizzly in a maternity ward.’ Dennis Albo, in his reality novel ‘One Bullet Left,’'Wonderful, odd genius...I hate to think what they'd find if they opened up his head'-American comedian Heywood Banks,'Super, passionate stuff!' Mark SmithDOWN THE ROAD AND FAR AWAY - lyrics:JUST MY KIND OF GIRLI asked her what she did for funShe said she didn’t knowShe did the days seemed shorter nowLove had lost its glowShe said all her bags were packedAnd waiting on the bedAnd if I thought I had a chanceI’d better shake my headShe said complete removalWas quite beyond the paleShe had to stick around a whileUntil she saved the whalesShe had to stick around untilShe made me see the lightAll my ideals are onlyClouding up my sightChorus-Ain’t no doubt about itShe’s just my kind of girlToo bad she lives so far awayShe’s half asleep and far too deepInto this crazy worldAin’t no doubt about itShe’s just my kind of girlShe said she’d given up on hopeAnd all that it impliedShe looked at me and said I seeSadness in your eyesShe said when you stop arguingWith what has to beYou’ll learn the only lessonYou’ll ever learn from meI got a funny feelingWe met somewhere beforeMaybe in a focus groupThe year before the warYou had a red bandannaWrapped around your pretty neckI would have loved you way back thenBut someone stacked the deckOLD JOE CALLS FROM THE HILLOld Joe calls from the hillTo the boy standing aloneOld man drunk by the stillDon’t know nothing he’s doneMomma in the kitchenCuts you with her tongueOld Joe calls from the hillTo the boy standing aloneHair yellow as strawEyes blue as the grassHeart lone as the pineBut it don’t know what to askSomewhere from the hillOld Joe’s plaintive moanDrifts upon the windTo the boy standing aloneMY LOVE IS EVERYTHINGClean and pure as a mountain streamDignified as a college deanAlive as life has ever beenMy love is everything to meChorus-My love is everything she can beMy love is everything to meMy love is everythingDancing in the heart and mindOf everybody she can findReaching to the heavensProbing inner spaceMy live is touch and sight and soundAnd always in good tasteYet one thing can defeat herAnd bring her to her kneesAnd force her from my memoryLike the moon removes the seaBut what care I for Father TimeHe too is growing oldAnd at least for now, I am warmWhile he is always coldCENTERSI’ll bet nothing can get so smallIt can’t be cut in twoAnd I’ll bet nothing can be bigger Than what’s inside of youI’ll bet it all goes on foreverNot just outwardly, but inI’ll bet we’re each of us a centerAnd that’s what we’ve always beenSo if you’re feeling out of thingsLonely tired and blueRemember you’re a centerAnd there’s centers all ‘round youLITTLE KNIVESI’m tired unto death from all these little knivesIt’s not the big one that gets youIt’s when they come in fivesI don’t know what I want but I know I want it nowThe snow lies heavy on the powerline tonightI don’t know where I find the strength to hold you tightMaybe it’s the same place I finally come to seeAll the contradictions holding me downAin’t nothing but the chatter from a brain-dead clownAin’t nothing but the chains I’m dragging to my graveDon’t the rain sound lovely hiding in the airI tried to cross my heart and say it wasn’t there Help me tie my shoe and point me to the stairI need to be deliberate in everything I doI’m being left behind by everyone but youI want to go so slow I get behind my mindIf I could see through this illusion I wouldn’t say a wordI wouldn’t try to argue what we both know is absurdI wouldn’t lift a finger in anger or in trustTHE CAMEL'S BACKIf you’re disappointed, the old man said to meIt’s ‘cause you expected what was not to beThat’s when I shot him and as he went to hellI said remember you’re my major disappointment number twelveChorus-Disappointment number twelve didn’t break the camel’s backI’d guacamole fro a camelIf a camel had the knack, I’d climb upon its backI’d ride into the desert ‘til the desert starts to crackRighteous anger burns the sea, flood the land and calls to meKill the moon and blind the sun until the revolution’s doneI was feelin’ like a mountain climber lost inside the AlpsWhen she came between twin heartbeats and said she needed helpThat’s when I unloaded, and as she met her fateI said, remember you’re my major disappointment number eightI was telling these stories to another friend of mineWhen he came up with this classic lineDon’t that gavel get heavy? I said let me be the judge of thatAnd you’re the worst disappointment I ever hadJUST MISSED MEETING (by Garry Macpherson)In the museum of your life I was a dinosaur’s lost tailA relic of an ice age once delivered in your mailIn the springtime of a morning when the sun was on your mindAnd the postman’s parting message was, the wind of birth is blindThere’s no undoingAll the windings in the coil around the core of all you’ve beenWhile you wandered through the attics and the mazes of your dreamTime and the valley of the city when the mail train left the trackI found you sleeping in the ocean with my name burned on your backThere’s no returningAll the letters that I sent you that you piled beneath your bedTo remind you of the childhood you’[d kept hidden in your headDrowned in dissolution when the ebb tide cleared the shoreAnd washed away the blood stains I’d painted around your doorIt left no meaningTo the words of misconception of the metaphors you boreAnd though you often heard them screamingYou could never guess what forYou’d ignored their unasked questions of the gaps between our thoughtsAnd our search to find the answersAnd insert them in the slots between our lifetimesThere’s no beginningHIGUEY HAIRCUTHiguey haircut’s mighty fineTakes a bite out of my mind, my mindBarber, help me travel lightWhen I take my homeward flight, tonightBroken pavement tricks my feetSunshine burns the hanging meat, the meatSugar coffee don’t do squatPor favor, another shot, make it hotTim can rollers on her headClank upon her marble bed, he bedPower and water come and goBut nothing stops the passing show, the showHot merengue fills my earTime to have an otra beerAn otra beer, over hereAy carumba, she can’t do the rhumbaShe might have a bugChills and fever, will they ever leave herShe might have to take a drugWAY PAST NOWWay past now, past the burning cowWhere the salesmen never stopWhere the road rolls deepAnd keening sheep sacrifice their cropNoble steeds have lost their feedWhile Agnes chews her mopWay past now, space and time have wowedBut no one calls the copsChorus’I’m felling helpless, AgnesAnd a little reckless tooTake me down your garden pathAnd I will go with youWay past now past the trampled vowsAnd the pleasure that is cruelSome old man with an empty handSpeaks the language of a foolI just listen to my teardrops glistenAs they slide into the sandI’m too tired to fall asleepBut I’ll do what I can