How his relationship with Diane influenced his songwriting for The Lace: “We share a large amount of romance in this life, and you can’t help but put that into music. How can you be miserable? … It’s good for now and I hope it’s good later. There’s the cynical part — you have to maintain some portion of realism.” — “The Rewards of Rock Stardom” by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, November 1, 1986
With regard to his boat, the Blue Di, and writing songs on the water: “This is the best thing I’ve ever bought, bar none. It’s not too conspicuous. It’s big enough for one guy to operate and the chief pretty officer over here [referring to Diane]. She hates taking orders, but somebody’s gotta be captain of the boat… I enjoy my free time. I like doing this [boating]. I’d much rather do this, now that we’re writing…. We love the water. It’s really soothing. It seems to be good for us.” — excerpts from “The Rewards of Rock Stardom” by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, November 1, 1986
On recording The Lace: “When I went down to the studio, I was totally on my own. I had no influences… I don’t think anybody who sits down to write a song wants to be thought of as pulling off somebody else’s material.” — from “Benjamin Orr: The Cars’ Mr. Casual Steps Out” by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician Magazine, March 1987
“Our objective was to make a very radio-sounding pop record. And the songs dictated that direction. They weren’t the type of thing you’d want to superimpose some kind of quirky approach to, just to be interesting. Since it’s very pop-sounding, some people are just gonna turn off to it right away. But if people listen to it carefully, there’s some real interesting textural stuff going on there.” — Larry Klein, co-producer of The Lace, from “Benjamin Orr: The Cars’ Mr. Casual Steps Out” by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician Magazine, March 1987
“We were searching for some sounds with some humor, because Ben’s writing is very quirky, with a lot of non sequiturs and strange juxtaposition of words. In that way, it’s similar to The Cars.” — Larry Klein, co-producer of The Lace, from “Benjamin Orr: The Cars’ Mr. Casual Steps Out” by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician Magazine, March 1987
On writing songs with Benjamin for The Lace: “I kept hearing this song coming upstairs from the studio and one day he said, ‘Hey, do you want to try writing lyrics with this song?’ and I said, ‘Sure.’ And I said, ‘How will you know whether it’s going to work or not?’ and he said, ‘I’ll know immediately. If it works, it works.’ So we wrote ‘Stay The Night’ and it came very easily, and it was smooth, and he seemed to like my work, so we continued on from there and we wrote eleven songs.” — Diane Grey Page, “Rock Of The World” interview with host Phil Harvey, 1986
That’s The Way (written by Benjamin Orr and Diane Page, ©1985)
She’ll get you mystified, you’re going for a ride
Or you can let it drop.
Or you can take the hit or you can miss the ship
Or you could take the top
That’s the way I want, I gotta see you anyway…yeah
Well, you can jump the fence or you can have some sense
Or you can call the cop.
Or you can close the book or you can just unhook
And all I know is…
That you can have some if you want to (don’t close your eyes)
I could show you if you want to
But all I know is…
That’s the way I want
Shake you, take you down
All the way…yeah
(I tell you) That’s the way… all the way
Well, you can take what you want to (don’t close your eyes)
You can do what you like (** your eyes)
Just something else to get through (don’t close your eyes)
But you got to want to win
It’ll come around again anyway
Well, you can take what you want to (don’t close your eyes)
You can do what you like (** your eyes)
Just something else to get through (don’t close your eyes)
But you got to want to win
It’ll come around again anyway
Hey you can take the piece or you can shake the squeeze
You can let it drop.
Well, you can take the pass or you can break the glass
And all I know is…
That’s the way I want
Shake you; take you down
Yeah
Well you can roll it back or you can counteract
or you can shut it down.
Well you can take the hit or you can transmit (transmit)
And all I know is…
That you can have some if you want to (don’t close your eyes)
I can show you if you want to.
But all I know is…
That’s the way I want
Shake you; take you down…yeah
(I tell you) That’s the way…
All the way
The Lace (written by Benjamin Orr and Diane Page, ©1985)
Just walking through the city, some need to sort things out
I don’t need to know the pity I’m feeling for us now
We walked right back together, back when I hardly knew
Why do the strangest things bring back those times with you?
Just when we’re getting closer I’m seeing something new
Just soaking up the city, drifting the days away, yeah
Searching through crowds of people, the face that got away
We talked good times together, put all my dreams on you
You led me down some path and now I see where to
Turns out my best just wasn’t good enough for you
You couldn’t recognize the loss in the world
I want to lose yourself, you couldn’t feel the pull
Everything just ends up so sad, too bad, I gave it what I had
Just walking through the city, drifting the days away, yeah
Searching through crowds of people, the lace that got away
You’re telling me it’s nothing when I would watch you stare
How could I get to you when you were never there?
We walked right back together, back when I hardly knew
Why do the strangest things bring back those times with you?
Just when we’re getting closer I’m seeing something new
You couldn’t recognize the loss in the world, so sad
Pink Champagne by The Grasshoppers (written by Ben Orzechowski, 1965)
Well, pink champagne and red, red roses
For you, my love, there will be, yeah
Pink champagne and red, red roses
If you spend your life with me
You are my angel from above
I’ll never cast away your love
If you’ll just say you’ll linger with me
Pink champagne and roses there will be
Sometimes a heart can be the very start
So, my dear… and come right here
Pink champagne and red, red roses
For you, my love, there will be, yeah
Pink champagne and red, red roses
If you spend your life with me
With me
With me
With me
Lincoln Park by Milkwood (written by Benjamin Orzechowski, ©1972)
Old men playing cards
Smiling, they speak in foreign words
And every day at three
They sit and play like children after school
Oh ain’t that cool… and they lived here all their lives in Lincoln Park
I took a morning picture of you
And caught you in the right light
Now ain’t that so very nice
And I still feel a loneliness without you
And I miss you, too… could you come and play in Lincoln Park?
Lovely lady would you like to walk with me and my white wolf dog?
Shauna blues eyes, warmth of sunshine
Stay with me tonight ’til tomorrow’s day
Portrait of you is this song
Shadowed because you’re not here
And old men still dealin’ their cards and I keep wishing you were here
It could be nice… if we could live a time by Lincoln Park
It could be nice… if we could live a time by Lincoln Park
On writing lyrics for The Lace with Diane Grey Page: “I had the tunes pretty much laid out, but my weakest point are lyrics, so I needed to get some help on lyrics. I asked her if she wanted to try a few with me, and the first one got into the second one and just kept… (trails off)” — interview with Mark Goodman, MTV, circa October, 1986
“Actually, the reason it took me so long to do a solo project is that nobody asked me to do one before. But when Elektra Records asked me if I wanted to do an album, I said yes. And then I kind of went crazy because I had never tried to write songs before.” — Chicago Tribune, December 30, 1986
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