The first four songs (and others besides either incomplete or forgotten) were first composed while I was a graduate student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. These "Songs of Innocence" were truly "drinking songs" which emerged from the taverns of the "Strip" where the philosophy grad students--and (self) selected faculty--gathered. One particularly well-remembered professor, mentor, and friend, Professor Richard Aquila, generously favored us with encouragement to develop our minds and senses of humor during those symposia, and to that extent deserves credit for any inspiration detected in these tidbits of ditty doggerel. At the same time, he is owed even more credit for discouraging us from the excesses of debauchery that we were given to by his near-Nicomachean penchant for the virtuous mean. To him and all friends in McClung Tower present and past, I dedicate my own version of the UT anthem.
Since leaving Tennessee in 1981, I've found a home among an outstanding collection of philosophers at the University of Wisconsin Colleges. My "Songs of Experience" were formed in their midst, and reflect their kinder, gentler environs, and perhaps as well, my own middling age.
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