Boosey & Hawkes
The eight songs in "Love Addiction" all yearn for love. Though the focus shifts from each to the next, the hunger, passion, and remorseless "SEARCH" remain painful constants — idées fixes.
John Kelly's poetry captures so well a gay man's pursuit of love, sex and connection in a big "metal" city — the shifting partners, the loneliness of dark bars, backrooms and baths, the sudden bright light of connection to an "ardent," reciprocating partner ("50/50"). The fear of intimacy ("The L-Word," i.e. , love) is eloquently detailed. The pains of geographical separation ("soon to be 3000 miles away"), of abandonment ("a second time I crave..") and of memory ("This solid ground warps under a memory of you") are all vividly expressed.
A love so relentlessly self-centered seems, to me, virtually an addiction. The flame of intensity always illuminated the author, while the partners, often shifting, remain in shadow. Perhaps the obsessive first song ("I I I I I") encapsulates this addictive edge most succinctly. And "speaking of self-centered), towards the end of the last song, "Brother," I "sign" my own name, i.e. , the baritone interjects a count, in Italian from 1 (uno) to 13 (tredici).
– DAVID DEL TREDICI, MAY 2007