Produced by Lili Haydn
Additional Production- Itai Disraeli and Marvin Etzioni
Mixed by Darrell Thorp  (Radiohead, Beck)
Recorded by Lili Haydn at LiliLand Studios, additional recording, Slamm Andrews (Hans Zimmer’s engineer)

Lili Haydn
Violin, vocals, keyboards, programming, guitar, kalimba, percussion

Itai Disraeli
Bass, guitars, additional drums

Matt Chamberlain
Drums

Blake Mills
Guitar

Satnam Singh Ramgotra
Tabla on Kashmir

Martin Tillman, Ginger Murphy 
Cello on Kashmir

Tina Guo
Cello on God Said and How I Got My Brains Back

Durga McBroom, Neara Russell, KB Solomon
Backing Vocals on I AM A MAN

Elephant Trapeze (Welcome to LiliLand)  (ft. Blake Mills)
Lili Haydn (Quan Yin Music, BMI)

This song was written in one of those fanciful moments when even the dustmites are singing to you, and the playfulness and pathos run seamlessly into each other.  In other words, welcome to LiliLand!


My My Cross the Line  (ft. Marvin Etzioni and Itai Disraeli)
Lili Haydn (Quan Yin Music, BMI), Marvin Etzioni  (Prophet Sharing Music), ASCAP), David Essex (BMG Chrysalis Music)

My My Cross the Line was written right after I evacuated my house, and was just starting to feel like I was getting my life back after losing everything in a freak chemical accident.  I felt free, finally having fun making music in the studio again, staying up all night grooving and hypnotizing myself with a blend of circus chimes and funky bass…I think of it like if Tom Waits were in a Tim Burton movie about a violin playing jungle girl. 

Speaking of jungle girl, I was raised with almost no pop culture, and didn’t realize when I wrote this song that the chorus was almost the exact same melody as David Essex’s Rock On.  By the time I was alerted to this fact, the song was too far along to change, so I reached out to Essex to split the song! 


Sea of Gold
Lili Haydn (Quan Yin Music, BMI)

I think the underlying motive for everything I do may be that I just want to feel love and to connect.  I’ve always felt like an outsider (being an only child, and poor, and the daughter of freak artists), and after watching Joseph Campbell's Power of Myth, I realized I needed a new mythology, a new image. Coming out of a 5 year period of intense rehabilitation from brain damage that disconnected me from everything, I began to imagine the gold inside me pouring out into a Sea of Gold, a kind of primordial soup, where all life and creativity is born, where I would get to share the beauty inside me, and feel connected and loved.


Did Your Mama (Teach You How to Share?)
Lili Haydn (Quan Yin Music, BMI)

I grew up on welfare, and my dad abused my mom and me, so I’ve always had a thing about fighting for the underdog.  This is why I studied Poli-Sci at Brown, and wanted to become a human rights lawyer.  But instead, now I put my body on the line at protests, and put my heart on the line in song.  Did Your Mama was inspired by a 5 year old girl I saw when I was protesting outside the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at the inception of the Occupy Movement. She was holding a sign that said "I know how to share!"  (see lyrics)


Tyrant
Lili Haydn (Quan Yin Music, BMI)

Whether it’s Gaza and Israel, or Ukraine and Russia, we are riddled with notions of good and evil; but it’s too easy to vilify other people, other countries, other parties, even real villains.  We all have the capacity to destroy or love.  Even as I go march the streets to protest greed and war, I have definitely annihilated a few people in my time.  I actually wrote this song after a fight with a friend, where I really showed some teeth and hurt someone dear. With this song, I declare, I’m ready to disarm the tyrant inside me.


Kashmir
Led Zepplin

I had the distinct honor of playing Kashmir with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant at the Forum in Los Angeles, and then opening for them on their last US tour.  I love the song and finally got the courage to record it in my own way for this record.   I was joined by members of Hans Zimmer's team of musicians, and the legendary drummer Matt Chamberlain (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Lana Del Ray) on this unique arrangement of this iconic and inspiring song. And, it makes me make the funky face.


How I Got My Brains Back (inspired by the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto E minor)
Lili Haydn (Quan Yin Music, BMI), Toby Pitman

Five years ago I got brain damage from pesticide poisoning in my house.  I evacuated, and had to get rid of everything I owned, including all my photos, my clothes and even my grandmother’s grand piano.  I lost my main gig, and I couldn’t think straight.  I wasn’t myself.  You can’t imagine.  I tried every therapy around…a detox, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, neuro-therapy, and more, but one day I started sight reading classical music again, in preparation for an upcoming concert, and to my surprise,  with each new day I woke up feeling more and more like myself, like a thinking person again, and I had a miracle…a full recovery.  This tune starts with the Mendelssohn Violin concerto in E minor and explodes into an exuberant rock 'n roll violin solo, victoriously declaring that music saved my life.

I did a TEDx talk about the experience, and in the process of researching it, I found out how important music is for both the rehabilitation and the development of the brain.  This renewed my commitment to music education and I joined forces with Matt Sorum, Macy Gray, and Slash, to raise money for Adopt the Arts, a program to bring music to public schools.   (see picture with Slash)


God Said
Lili Haydn (Quan Yin Music, BMI)

This is the first song I wrote after I evacuated my house, suffering from brain damage and having lost all my belongings (except my violin).  It’s hard to reconcile this kind of thing with any sense of a just Universe or loving God.  In this song I sing both the Shema, and the La Ilahu, the exact same Jewish and Muslim prayers affirming the Oneness of God… Whatever your belief system is…God, or nature, or nothing, I think ultimately we’re all connected…it’s all God, even the suffering, even the “devil” is just God in disguise.  I don’t have any answers, but I believe the beauty and the pathos are all emanations of the ineffable force that creates all life.  “And God said ‘I created everything!’…’and this too, my love, this too.’”


This is a Moment of Grace
Lili Haydn (Quan Yin Music, BMI)

I wrote this song for a film I scored called “The Horse Boy” about a beautiful family with whom I’m friends, who have an autistic son.  They traveled to Mongolia, from shaman to shaman on horseback to try to find a cure.  Ultimately there was no “cure,” but the adventure and process of letting go of expectations led to a greater understanding of the boy and a much deeper bond and richer love.  “Love is letting go…this is a moment of grace.”


Here is the Rose
Lili Haydn (Quan Yin Music, BMI), Marvin Etzioni  (Prophet Sharing Music, ASCAP)


There comes a time when a situation gets too intense, and you can’t turn away. "Here is the Rose (here is the dance)" is the theme song I wrote for the critically acclaimed film ANITA, by Oscar winning director Freida Lee Mock, about seminal gender activist Anita Hill.  She ultimately couldn’t turn away from her responsibility to speak truth to power, the results of which paved the way for the watershed election of women to the US Government in 1992.

The song was sent to Eve Ensler (Vagina Monologues) and adopted for the internationally celebrated 'One Billion Rising' movement to end violence against women.


I Am a Man
Lili Haydn (Quan Yin Music, BMI)

This song was inspired by the amazing signs worn by the Sanitation workers who marched with Martin Luther King before he was killed…they didn’t say ‘Higher wages’ or ‘Equal rights’.  They simply said “I AM A MAN” ~ a declaration of the highest order that they deserved human dignity.  I believe that is the essence of every movement; LGBTQ, the Women’s movement, even animal rights and the environmental movement…simply a respect for life.  It contains a quote from the Reverend Billy Kyles, who was with MLK at the time of his assassination, “You can kill the dreamer, you can never kill the dream.”