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Centered around the mesmerizing voice of Robert Ashley, this early version (released on LP by Lovely Music in 1979) of The Park and The Backyard is a masterpiece in its simplicity of form and in the purity and intensity of its effect on the listener. These two pieces were later to become the opening and closing segments of the seven part opera for television, Perfect Lives. "When Private Parts first hit the scene, everyone I knew had The Park memorized within a month and quoted from it constantly. Ashley's series of non-sequitur images, fusing into a picture so lifelike that it never quite added up, brought a mystery into music theater that smashed our previous conceptions of the genre." — Kyle Gann