A Book of Songs for Anne Marie was first issued in book form (with bonus disc) in 2004 on David Tibet’s Durtro label. It was limited to 150 copies and has been out of print for years. The reason to make the record in the first place was born out of love, and the reason to re-visit the record also came from that same scary yet beautiful place.

As for why I wrote the songs… Somebody once asked David Tibet for his favourite word or something like that and his answer was that the two most beautiful words in the English language are “and yet”. If I had to say where these songs came from I’d say they came from there — the land of “and yet”. As far back as I can remember I have always regarded men and women as nothing short of gods, capable as they were in my eyes, of such direct and uncomplicated desire — Lover and beloved. What in all the world could be more beautiful?

Baby Dee, 2010

Listen to some sample tracks:

She sent me the demo and I was floored — here was a true collection of lieder, or art songs.

Maxim Moston

What Maxim Moston envisaged in his words were:

song cycles performed in their entirety and stripped of all excess, just piano and voice, poetry and melody

Gone are the more bawdy ruminations to be replaced by a glowing heart of a record. Hermetically sealed and lovingly passed on so that we can understand what love could mean from Dee’s consuming perspective. It is at times jaw-dropping in its profundity.

Baby Dee on the writing process of A Little Book for Anne Marie, with the album’s inception in a cold January in Cleveland, 2002

I went to a studio and played them through once live at the piano and sent them off without even listening to it. Looking back, it’s hard even for me to understand why I insisted on the recording being so slapdash, as the book itself was exquisite; I guess two things, I knew I couldn’t do the songs justice and I hoped that maybe somebody down the road would do that for me. I know that’s crazy but in fact it worked. Years later I asked Maxim to arrange the songs but at that time we decided to do Safe Inside the Day instead. And then finally I got my little miracle when a year after that Max offered to go ahead and do those arrangements and produce the record. So he became that somebody down the road.

Watch Baby Dee perform Morning Fire

Live at The Stone, New York – februay 5, 2010, with Matthew Robinson on cello

Everybody has a right — the right to really be the lover, to really be the beloved. Regardless of how fucked up and inadequate we are or how short our time is together. We never lose that opportunity

Baby Dee 2009

A Book of Songs for Anne Marie

Track listing A book of Songs for Anne Marie

Overture 2:08

Love’s Small Song 3:07

A Book of Songs for Anne Marie 3:41

Lilacs 3:41

Unheard of Hope 4:34

Black But Comely 5:05

And Anne Marie Does Love To Sing 5:50

Endless Night 4:36

Set Me As a Seal 3:58

As Morning Holds a Star 3:36

An Early Spring 2:13

Morning Fire 2:41