ABSTRACT
Songs to My Master is a two-volume cycle of lyric poetry (accompanied by originalmusic) composed in 1990 by the gifted writer and composer John Eric Larsen (1965–2001) and performed by him at many venues within the leather community of the Midwest, including the Metropolitan Community Church service held during the International Mr. Leather contest in Chicago in 1998. The composition (viewed by its creator as an evolving work) had reached the sixth edition by 1996, with several successive versions of the primary texts of Shadowlands and Outlander printed by Larsen through his publishing company, Golden Bear Productions. Its themes of spiritual growth, courage, and self-exploration achieved through the rituals of leather sexuality make this work a unique voice in the realm of gay performance art. A third envisioned volume was never completed. Larsen died on April 2, 2001, in a hospital in Jackson, Michigan, of AIDS. He was a member of the residential leather family Household Keppeler.
This selection from Shadowlands is both the voice of the seeker, Jim, and the call of the writer himself to others through his personal vision of his journey of spiritual growth.
