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Apologies if this is too similar to the recent thread about co-writes, but does anyone know who the "main" songwriter (if there was one) on All This Is That was? I've always thought of it as a Carl song, but it's credited to Carl, Al and Mike.

(Also hello everyone how's it going this is the first post that I have made on this here forum)

Hello!  ;D

Al and Mike. Primarily Al. He took some words from poems by Robinson Jeffers and Bob Frost. It was his idea and Mike contributed some of the words and the ending and Carl took it to the heavens with his vocals.

I was in the audience here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtSGHcL6xOo

Thanks a lot! Al really doesn't get enough recognition as a songwriter, does he?

His solo album is great if you haven't checked it out.

or a singer.  Or a guitarist.  Or a human being. 

ahhh, but after you have it's not so great?

That pirate version of sloop John B will do that to a man. :lol

I remember an Al interview where he recalls Carl's role in mediating conflicts in the band. At a certain point, Carl would say, 'it IS what it IS' and things would calm down and proceed.

It IS what it IS would've made a good B-side for All This is That.  ;)

That's a good one! :) So the album name should be "Schrödinger's cat".

Or a producer. Al once said of this song, "I had another song based on a Robert Frost poem called 'The Road Not Taken', which is really a pretty poem.  I thought it would make a really nice song.  I went into the studio and cut a track.  Mike and Carl got involved and it became a whole 'nother thing.  It just became another song.  Mike wanted some meditation lyrics and Carl liked a certain type of production and so I stepped back and said, 'Well, okay!'.  If somebody's really that inspired to do something then that's great.  Then you work with it instead of fighting it and it comes out okay". (Byron Preiss' official biography of the band, pg. 119).

Apparently the track Al originally cut is a simple acoustic guitar-based production, whereas the Carl-produced track is as we hear it, with acoustic and electric pianos, bass, drums, and shaker - plus those gorgeous otherworldly vocals.

OK, lessee, that's ONE Carl & The Passions track you can tell us about!  Now, who played instruments on the track? Assume this was recorded at Bellagio?  :)

"Two waves and I, both travel by and that makes all the difference to me".  Sounds like Robert Frost to me!

I think it's high time that William Shatner release a CD of cover songs, including his personalized take on this song, "All This is Shat".

Hmm... I guess we know one of the lines Al wrote then, eh?

Yes, at Bellagio, and according to the AFM sheet, instrumentation by Carl, Ricky and Blondie.

Is a version of that still in the vault? I'd really like to hear that.

One of the two BB tracks I play to chill me out in times of stress. The other one is "LGAFAW".

I once asked Alan - via a mutual friend - exactly what was being said behind the main vocal at various points in the song. The answer came back "he's listened... and he can't remember".  ;D

Wow! Those are great lyrics! ;)

My sides, they are splitting.  ;D

One of my favorite BB tracks ever.  Carl's vocals along with the lyrics just put you in a peaceful frame of mind.  Amazing.

Took me many a year to find out what Carl was singing at the end.  "Jai guru dev."

A couple of other songs on CT&P were a little hard to decipher too. Twas a revelation when I finally saw the lyrics printed 15 or 20 years later.....

Including some of the parts of He Come Down. One part sounds like "crizing for the lord."

  Years ago I was ambivalent about this track, but "All This Is That" is a keeper. Is it the best song off CARL & THE PASSIONS - "So Tough" ? Maybe so. Well deserved exposure at most C50 shows.