he following song represents a definitive piece of my history. I wrote and recorded the original version in 1989 after the breakup with my first love named Robin. Why this is significant is that she was instrumental in helping me turn my back on the occult at the end of 1988 (literally on New Years Eve). Then in January 1989, I asked her to be my girlfriend.

We'd been friends, we worked together at the Health Department and she was my first interracial relationship (she's Black). I was 19 and she was 23.

There were problems (working together being one of them). I was sincere in my feelings and attraction but inexperienced and immature. Also, my parents were against interracial relationships for racist reasons and I wasn't strong enough to stand up to them at the time. So, I hid a lot about the relationship from them while Robin introduced me to her family. At the same time, Robin had serious trust issues and I later learned she was struggling with her own sexuality. After six months, she broke up with me.

Any breakup hurts but I had to get therapy for this one. I wrote several songs to help process the emotional loss but two stood out: "A Distant Soul" which I wrote in 1989 and "Robin" which made it onto my studio album in 1990.

I did learn from my mistakes and the experience. Going forward, I did defend my interracial relationships, especially with Angel. That's a completely different discussion for another time.

The story with Robin has a twist, though. In 2010, I reached out to Robin when I found her on Facebook. I sent her a friend request and she accepted it. We exchanged 20 emails over the course of several days (I kept Angel in the loop the whole time) and not only settled things, but became friends again. And when Angel's and my daughter, Jeyli, was born in 2011, Robin congratulated us on Facebook. Sadly, Robin died of cancer in April 2012. I am grateful that after such a long time, we'd both matured. It showed me that maybe we should have just stayed friends but everything happens for a reason. And good did come of it.

I debated posting the song but "A Distant Soul" was never about casting aspersions or blame at Robin. I didn't use her name in the song, go into specific details or distribute the song back then. I was sharing my feelings about the relationship in music now that it was over. I made the original recording in late 1989 using electric guitar (with a lot of flanger and effects), electric bass guitar and I sang the vocals. I recently uploaded it to Suno A.I. and with this 2026 remix, you can understand the lyrics I wrote (it's not my vocals on the remix) and it turned out really nice.