“Faces in the Crowd” was the last song we recorded for the Ishmael album. We recorded it live in Perfect Sound Studios and video taped the performance and recording of it. It’s an older song and dates back to the late 1970's. We wanted a more acoustic song that we could use to inter space between the more up-tempo songs on the album and be a bridge to set up the albums third act. So, I took it out of mothballs and dusted it off and re-wrote the majority of the lyrics for it.
On the surface, this song is about a guy going back to an old hangout of his, from his past, hoping that he’ll run into old friends there and hopefully an old flame that he still had issues with. However, the song is also about growing older, the choices we’ve made in life, and what we might have done differently. (and if it would have mattered in the end anyways.)
The song was originally inspired by the Beatles's song “I've Just Seen A Face” but is many times the case when you set to learn a new song, you often make plenty of mistakes and these mistakes can lead you down a path of creating something of your own that's completely different from the original thing that sparked it. I also made sure I paid homage to another one of my songwriting heroes in this song, Bob Dylan, by referencing that "The answers were still Blowing in the Wind”.
‘Faces in the Crowd” was recorded at Perfect Sound Studio’s in Frogtown CA. The musicians on this song are: Sarven Manguiat on acoustic guitar; Bonnie Brooksbank on violin; Rob Hall on Upright Bass; and Stephen Haaker on percussion. Brett Grossman and Sean Kellett were the engineers and Stephen Haaker along with Brett Grossman produced the song. This song was recorded at Perfect Sound Studio’s in Frogtown CA. It was Mastered at “the Lodge” in NYC by Emily Lazar.
The video of “Faces in the Crowd” was shot and edited by Noel Ross.