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I recommend both The Garden and The Prison to anyone who likes easy listening, new age and classical (particularly The Garden). And for anyone who likes a good, clean uplifting and spiritual story, these two albums are for you.

I also recommend, from someone who has done it the other way, reading The Prison first, and then reading The Garden. There were a lot of things I missed in The Garden that I didn't really catch until I read The Prison. That is why I'm doing The Prison first.

Track One: "Opening Theme (Life the Unsuspecting Captive)"

I generally skip this song because I think Nesmith's vocals are a little too forced. It seems to me he's trying just a little too hard to be a singer. Face it, he's no Micky Dolenz, he doesn't have the commercial and versatile voice like Micky has. Life the Unsuspecting Captive has incredible lyrics, and kudos to Nesmith for the beauty of the entire song instrumentally-but vocally, I'd rather hear Elton John or John Lennon on this piece.

Track Two: "Dance Between The Raindrops"

I like this song-this is more of the Nesmith-singing I'm used to. While the lyrics don't tie directly to the story, I think it is fitting and a nice second track. The musical backdrop of the song lifts the philosophical lyrics, and one particular passage always strikes me (it's part of the chorus too) whenever I hear it: "But there is no way in to where you already are and there is no way out of everywhere. No satisfaction can come to that which is fulfilled and the lies will fall away with the cares."

Track Three: "Elusive Ragings"

In the booklet, there are only four sets of stanzas for the lyrics, yet the song is drawn out for five full minutes. That says something for the musicality of the song. It is a Romantic (in terms of the Romantic Age) look at life and humanity, which is, in all respects, the very same reality of the world Nesmith draws us into at the opening of the story.

Track Four: "Waking Mystery"

I love this track as well, for it taps into the ethereal aura which surrounds the Prison. And the first line of the refrain, "Awake, behold, the morning's near" has inspired a poem I wrote called Awake! Behold! (which, by the way, has been scrapped because I could never match Nez's virtuosity with  words and didn't much want to be accused of plagiarism anyway!)

Track Five: "Hear Me Calling? (You're Fine)"

I generally skip this song too, because it has the "plod-plod" feel of songs like "Twilight On the Trail" and "Yellow Butterfly," which is too Country-Bumpkin Western for me. The lyrics are also a little confusing. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate a lyrical masterpiece when I see one, but the country-western feel of this song just repulses me.

Track Six: "Marie's Theme"

This is my favorite of the bunch. There is something about the gentle upbeat rhythm. I like the approach to Marie in the song, and how it appears to be sung from Jason's point of view of Marie and Les. My favorite part is the repetition of "Hidden behind all the logic one finds without truth" for about five or six minutes to the music. I'm not normally one to like the repetition of a single line that frequently, but on this particular time, I'm sold.

Track Seven: "Closing Theme (Lamp-post)"

Usually I'm not crazy about this song because it comes right after my favorite track, so it's kind of like being someone who has to perform on the Ed Sullivan Show right after the Beatles the night Beatlemania struck US shores. The lyrics here are so complex it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's to the point where I look at the lyrics, hear them, and just shrug. Nevertheless, it is a fitting note to end on.

CHAPTER ONE:

I like the panoramic opening, the descriptions of the main characters (Les, Marie and Jason) and the Prison itself. It's a nice way to orient the readers. I like the way Jason and Marie begin a silent courtship, and when they do fall in love, it is as innocent as love should be portrayed to be.

It is never mentioned why Jason or any of the others were sent to the Prison in the first place. At first this threw me, because I like to know about a character's past, but as I read the story, I became aware of why Nesmith gives you no hints into Jason's or Marie's pasts. It doesn't matter what he did before he came, what matters are that he came to the Prison and the subsequent actions he takes while he treks to find his true self.

When Jason finally goes through the hole in the wall, I think that the descriptions of the dimension he enters are phenomenal, and how Tom and Janey come to help him, whilst letting him decide for himself what in the heck is going on. Jason shows his human side by demanding precise answers, which Tom and Janey give cryptic answers to. Jason eventually begins to understand-though looking at where the Prison is and not seeing walls would be a bit of a chunk to swallow for anyone.

I also like Jason's dedication to Marie, and his determination to come back. And here is where Nesmith reinforces the idea that life is only what you perceive it to be. If you think you see a Prison wall, then you see it. If you don't think you see it, then it ceases to exist. That is whole concept of the end of this first chapter. And when Jason sees the wall when he knows he shouldn't can be construed as something of a social comment on peer pressure and the pressure on one individual to do and think and be what is "normal", but to quote Peter Tork in the movie Head: "Who's to say what is normal?" Normalcy is just a perception, and in this part of Chapter One, I believe Nesmith is trying to convey this whole idea, particularly with this section of the chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:

Jason manages to convince himself that the walls are not there, and the walls disappear. This says something about his character (which I believe is Nesmith's alter ego, rather than the character of his son Jason).

His devotion to Marie is obviously reciprocated, for she finally admits to Les that she is in love with Jason, and decides that she wants to be with Jason, who does not want to be in the Prison anymore, walls or not, so she agrees to follow him through the wall.

Her mistake is that while her heart belongs to Jason, she would rather stay in the Prison if he did. She leaves through the hole in the Wall only because she is going with Jason, not for the desire to be free of the Prison walls.

The fact that Jason perceives a perfectly clear, cloudlessly starry night where as Marie experiences much of the same horror and fear he experienced when he first when through the hole gives a very vivid insight into exactly what this dimension is that he has become a part of. It is less of a physical dimension, more of a spiritual and psychological dimension. And because Marie is not there of her own free will to be free but for her love for Jason, she does not experience the clarity, elation and freedom that Jason had when the initial fear abated. Instead she feels confused, frightened, and very uncertain. When Jason takes her to see the Prison without walls, she sees it both ways, which gives perhaps an insight into her personality--torn between wanting to believe what she's told, and wanting to see what her eyes "should" see. To her, the Prison is home, her safety grounds, and she wants only to go back.

Jason proves that being in this dimension has changed him by unselfishly letting her go back, knowing he can love her just the same even if they are not together and knowing that she is miserable anywhere but the Prison. He takes his joy in knowing that he loves her.

In the end of The Prison, Nesmith really builds on the ideals of love and pure love, how all it takes is to know one loves someone to be free. It almost seems like a social comment against the old saying behind the Monkees song "Love To Love". I applaud the theme of the last five pages of the story. As someone who believes that love is more than just two people who always want to be together, I really find an anthem in this whole story.

This album is Nesmith at his finest.