LORETTA'S BOY

You know Peter Lewis. He's the dapper guy in the upper left-hand corner of that first Moby Grape sleeve, set apart from the rest of the band by those Warren Beatty/Jan Berry/Mark Lindsay good looks Hollywood is always scrambling after. And he's the man who penned the stunning "Fall On You" from the Grape's classic first album. Lewis stuck it out through all the peaks and the valleys, the backbiting and the personnel changes of a band that, over the years, has become synonymous with the label unrealized potential. As Marlon Brando says, in On The Waterfront, they "coulda been a contender." Hell, they could have been champ.
Lewis resides now in the tiny Danish town of Solvang, halfway down the California coast between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Comfortably settled into an upmarket tract home on the outskirts of this little gingerbread encrusted village — whose main appeal seems to lie in its windmills and tourist-clogged gift shops — Lewis seems at peace with his legend, and with that of his former band. He'll theorise for hours with the zeal of a graduate student on just about any topic, but his eyes shine brightest when he gets going on the Grape, past, present and (possibly) future. And how it all fits into the big picture By: Jud Cost © Ptolemaic Terrascope



He
Said he found himself
And gave away the things he called his own
He
Awoke and told his friend
Things he'd seen and heard but could not comprehend

And so taken back by what he had just said
He cried, "Oh Lord, am I alive or dead?"

He
Was shattered when he saw
How everything's exactly as it seems
He
Then able to admit
Saw his thoughts drift into unimportant schemes

So he found himself a pawn to cop the score
Of all those games we play and then ignore

He
Wandered off alone
To search for someone else to passively agree
He
Then felt no further need
To hold it peacefully within was proof indeed

And he found himself a pawn to cop the score
Of all those games we play and then ignore


Words and Music by Peter Lewis