By the time we began this recording, I had worked out an elaborate philosophical explanation for the music, depicted by a Salvador Dali painting. The painting symbolizes genetic memory DNA codes, and evolutionary process (this would be the well known "Persistence of Memory" 1931). Actually, I was feeling a little uncomfortable about the idea, but George, the producer, liked the idea and we had begun to secure rights to include the painting...As we were listening to the playback of Jungleopolis (the title track), Paul turned to me and said, "listen to Billy, he's a beast!" Then I knew what my discomfort was. Sure, it's interesting to speculate about what music is, where it comes from what it does, but at the bottom of it, speculation has nothing to do with making music. Speculation is done by the intellect. It is the critic; the after the fact process of categorization (guesswork). Music does its own speaking and the message is from the beast within us. Recently, I heard a recording of wolf calls. Two people had spent several months in a forest recording packs of wolves howling, calling, singing ensembles, and alone to each other. It was beautiful, real and unreal. A highly technical explanation (wave, form, sound measurements, etc., etc.) was printed on the album cover, but I responded to the sound itself, rather than the technical data. Sound with emotional content... Music.

Art Resnick
November, 1973

(the original cover)

The Persistence of Memory 1931
Salvador Dali

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