I wrote this one when I was 31.  I first became interested in music at age 11 or 12 when my step-father, who played music by ear, bought an old upright "saloon style" piano for our living room so he could practice.  As my mom told it, she was doing dishes in the kitchen and heard a song coming from the piano that she didn't recognize.  She came out to ask my step-dad what it was, and found me playing the piano.

Later, she tried giving me lessons, but I hated them, and that endeavor ended quickly!  But I loved playing, and stole away to the keyboard every chance I got.

Throughout my teenage years I became enveloped by the joy of composing my own songs, but always longed for a way to record them since I couldn't write music.  Eventually, we got a tape recorder, and the very first song I wrote with purpose was recorded as part of the soundtrack for a proposed feature-length animation my parents were creating about my step-dad's experiences as a scoutmaster.

"The Adventures of the Mighty Toad Patrol" never went anywhere, but I still have the full-length program on tape, as well as all the character and scenario sketches that my step-father (also a wonderful artist!) had drawn.

Just after I got married, I started researching the new multi-track tape recorders, specifically by TEAC and AKAI.  (Remember, I grew up before 8-track tapes and cassettes, and CDs weren't even imagined.)  Finally, in at the end of the 70's I saved enough money to get my expensive tape deck (several hundreds of dollars - a chunk of change back then!).  I wrote a number of songs but never did anything with them.

I started messing around with multi-tracks and bouncing mixes back and forth to squeeze additional tracks into the mix.  I had a CZ101 synthesizer from Casio - an analog keyboard that was, I believe, one of the first consumer level off-the-shelf synths ever produced.  I will have mine right here in the living room with me as I type.

It had a wonderful sound and, being analog, was endlessly programmable.  Though it came with a hundred pre-built sounds, each one could be modified, right down to the wave form.  I also still love the bend wheel, which created some amazing effects I was never able to duplicate with any modern digital synth.

But I digress.  Simply, I created a whole collection of original multi-tracked compositions over the years, one of which is the song above.  It was composed about the time the original Miami Vice series was on television, which relied heavily on synth music for the score, and shows that influence.