Hey, this is Tom Barlow. My label asked me to write a bio to introduce myself and my new record. They told me to include things like the fact that I won the 2001 MIX 99.9 Songwriting Competition in Toronto; once opened for Pearl Jam; am about to put out my Sony Music Canada debut...but I'd rather defer to the following quotation: "To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim" Oscar Wilde Instead of a bio, here are a few words about my songs... "Cruise" "Cruise, never check the rearview mirror/ cruise, watch the future getting clearer...With a nametag and a bright blue vest/ they put the handcuffs on your wrist." A teenager driving in his first car with his first love feels equal parts Christopher Columbus and James Bond. ...show more

Hey, this is Tom Barlow. My label asked me to write a bio to introduce myself and my new record. They told me to include things like the fact that I won the 2001 MIX 99.9 Songwriting Competition in Toronto; once opened for Pearl Jam; am about to put out my Sony Music Canada debut...but I'd rather defer to the following quotation: "To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim" Oscar Wilde Instead of a bio, here are a few words about my songs... "Cruise" "Cruise, never check the rearview mirror/ cruise, watch the future getting clearer...With a nametag and a bright blue vest/ they put the handcuffs on your wrist." A teenager driving in his first car with his first love feels equal parts Christopher Columbus and James Bond.

Ten years later, check in with him at his McJob and he'll feel equalparts Hurricane Carter and the Count of Monte Cristo. "Walk Away" "Doesn't matter that you're lying in the gutter/ It doesn't matter that your brain's all cluttered/ It doesn't matter that you're covered in scars/ You're never in the gutter with your eyes on the stars." There are millions of remarkable dramas happening around us at every second. Of these tales, the ones I find most interesting are those of overwhelming events that occur in an instant and irrevocably alter a person's life. These types of stories, and a liberal dose of Oscar Wilde plagiarism, are what shaped this song.

"Billion Dollar Rockets" "Down at Union Station we watch the open hand Parade/you see the purple hearts and the shopping carts and "sorry man I got no change"/Billion dollar rockets and Star Wars fantasies/guess there's just no money left for the kids out on the street." Conservative estimates on the cost of the Star Wars Missile Defense Program are one TRILLION dollars...how very Dr. Evil. Most scientists insist it will never work and the rest of us know that there are far more insidious ways of attacking the U.S.A. than launching ICBMS. ...show less