We all have one – an album that touched us so deeply that it rings deep in our deepest memories, and yet no one else you know has ever heard of it. For me, that album is the 1995 self-titled release from Canadian singer-songwriter Rebecca Timmons. A friend of a friend of my mom’s was in her band or something like that, and as a result, I was lucky enough to have a copy in the house where I grew up. The production quality is some of the best I have heard, and it is talented by many wonderful session musicians, not to mention the lovely Rebecca. Let me say a few words about some of the songs on this bright, but sadly dark album.

“Angels” begins very simply, with Rebecca’s beautiful and unconventional voice barely accompanied by the piano. As the song progresses, it reaches its full lush orchestral potential, while remaining poignant and bittersweet. It also gets the album off to a good start by setting a precedent for unusual themes. Specifically, “Angels” is about people who die young and how they are lucky, “because they don’t have to live in the shadows of the things they leave behind.”

Rebecca betrays her rock and roll influence in “Up the Walls of the World.” It is powerful and inspiring while remaining shrouded in enigma and metaphor. “Forever afterwards, they will hear the laughter, those who stood up on the walls of the world,” says the chorus. For me, it conjures up the image of an army of freethinkers besieging and entering the walled garden of paradise.

“Stand On Your Own” is one of my favorite songs of all time. I used to scribble the lyrics in the margins of my journal when I was in the midst of that deadly torture they call adolescence. In the lyrics, Rebecca Timmons has shooting stars streaming across the sky, imparting wisdom to a lost soul standing on the ground.

“Coming of the Dream” is another one that touches me so deeply, even now, that I can hardly speak about it. It is a kind of ecstatic song, with tears of joy that run down your face and save your life that drowns me even as I write these words.

My mother sometimes played this album in the background when we were entertaining. When track 14, “Sleep”, played, everyone in the room fell silent and the hairs on the back of the neck stood on end. One of us would be forced to get up and change the CD. It is a haunting and chilling lullaby about the witch trials.

The last song, “Calling”, is basically a six-minute opera. I could have written an article about it in college. It is enormously creative and very difficult to describe, although I am inclined to compare it to Bohemian Rhapsody, if Bohemian Rhapsody was about the nature of the universe and the dawn of a new era of enlightenment.

If you take a moment to take a look at the track list here …

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1494805/a/Rebecca+Timmons.htm

… you’ll see that the album has 17 tracks, but only 13 of them are songs. The other four are intro tracks, only a few seconds long, using sound effects to introduce the songs that follow. This is one of those creative techniques that sadly is no longer pragmatic for artists and record labels looking to make their releases compatible with the digital age. Albums are rarely played from start to finish anymore, but are fragmented and their components scatter to the four winds of iPod shuffle. While there are many things about the digital age that I love and accept, I must admit that the decline of the “album” as an art form saddens me. Some of my fans have congratulated me on shelling out the extra few hundred dollars to the printers so that all my song lyrics are printed in their entirety on my CD booklets. This is also becoming an archaic practice when consumers can easily search for their lyrics online. I’m just old school I guess. But I’ll get off my rostrum now.

Rebecca Timmons’s music is indescribably beautiful. His poetry is deep, his voice is expressive and his style is unique. You do not have to miss It. It takes a bit of listening to find it, but you can still buy it online if you search.