Joe Ely

With Satisfied at Last, Joe Ely has made the album of his life. Literally."It reflects where I am and where I've been," he explains. "The whole record takes a kind of journey. As you reflect on it, you're just glad you made it. Everything adds up differently than you had thought it would."

Musically and lyrically, the song cycle represents a pilgrimage, from the vagabond troubadour's perspective of the album-opening "The Highway Is My Home" to the spiritual acceptance of the closing "Circumstance" (one of the two songs on the album written by fellow Flatlander Butch Hancock). It's a homecoming journeyHas reflected in the pivotal "Not That Much Has Changed"--that finds a restless spirit settling back and taking stock. It expresses the older-and-wiser insights of a seeker who has discovered that "heaven's here on earth, and so is hell," as he sings on "You Can Bet I'm Gone."

"There comes a point in your life when you have to take a long look at mortality. It's something you push aside and say you'll think about that later. But I thought I should just examine this thing, in a way that looks at the whole circle. And that's how songs like `Live Forever' and Butch's `Circumstance' fit in."As he sings in the title track, "I didn't take on the world/For fortune or fame/I set my direction/With a flickering flame." That direction has led him here and left him satisfied. At last. Or at least for now. ~

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