This is an album that would be in my 5 top list to bring on an island ...and I own 500+ CDs. I have all of JH's albums and this continues to be my absolute favorite and the only one of his on my top-5-island-choices. That's how much this has affected me. The album is a very reflective and spiritual body of work and I feel profoundly moved by this album.

I would say that if you like your JH as a southern folk rocker best, than this album may come off as a bit off-kilter, or even soft, new-ageish (it's not!) or pretentious.

I would say that you almost have to have an appreciation of Native American spiritual/religious beliefs/concepts to appreciate the spiritual insights of the writing in this work.

This album first and foremost in my opinion is about the writing. The music is like icing on the cake, which on some songs are softly Native American-feeling in tempo (Seven Little Indians, Thirty Years of Tears, Listening to Old Voices).

There are few "rocker" pieces here but it's again the terrific writing here that simply really blows my mind. All the songs are incredibly poetic in the imagery that gets painted.

I cried the first time I heard Listening to Old Voices -- a very beautiful piece about the realization of how beautiful life is both in the real and spiritual world. There is a very Zen-like quality that JH draws in this song. 13 years later the song (and the album) still affects me profoundly with each listen.

The title track also makes references to time and how we and the spirits weave in and out of it together.

The song The Rest of the Dream on the outset is about bringing a new life physically into space but the title is a really a reference to the Native American concept of the continuity of life like a dream and that lives weave in and out of it, just as in how dreams operate.

To be more honest, this album really changed my life and came into my life at one of the lowest points of my life. This album is not particularly "depressing" or even "uplifting" but rather it is a life affirming, written by a person who probably has had his fair share of ups and downs and this album is a chronicle of his life and his reflections and self-examination of why things are the way they are.

What I am saying in this review is not so much to try to persuade anyone but rather how a particular work of music can greatly affected and enriched your life. If you do give this CD a whirl I hope it has the same positive afect on you as it had on me. Thanks Mr. Hiatt!

This was the first CD I heard from John Hiatt. I've bought every CD since. He's like your best buddy, your brother, the nice guy you wish you'd meet, etc. Great music. Great lyrics.

Stolen Moments is the overall best recording John Hiatt has made. Every song is a winner and drastically different in feel. After his previous two super recordings this disc is the culmination of this period, which is easily his best. The three, Slow Turning, Bring The Family and Stolen Moments are very much like a single body of work. But I keep coming back to Stolen Moments, just to feel good.

It's hard to chose a favorite Hiatt album, but especially difficult to decide which is the best from the "Recovery Trilogy": Bring the Family, Slow Turning and Stolen Moments. The greatness of this particular album, is that the writing is so mature and the stories in the songs so moving; it culminates all the promise and greatness displayed in all of Hiatt's previous work. In fact, I have often felt that this is actually an example of the great American novel in musical format: The opener "Real Fine Love" is a preface to the story that the rest of the songs develop. After that, "Seven Little Indians" and "Child of the Wild Blue Yonder" develop the central characters of Hiatt and his wife by discussing their past with beautiful imagery sung sweetly over elegantly simple music. The other songs develop their relationship: their meeting, their falling in and out of love as the world around them changes. It moves you through their lives until the happy-ending, toe-tapping closer of "One Kiss." This all makes it seem as though one couldn't listen to any of the songs separately, or that the album is a trite "rock opera," which is far from true. Each song, is in fact it's own "chapter" and can stand alone, if you have the willpower to listen to only one Hiatt song and not have to keep on listening... and I've met very few people who have.

John Hiatt fans are, if nothing else, opinionated. I can certainly see how the hard-core faithful who love "Slow Turning" and "Bring the Family" might find "Stolen Moments" a bit too commercial. But like earlier reviewer Sherry Lazaroff, "Stolen Moements" was my first Hiatt album (I heard it at a party and asked "Who is THAT??")and I've been a fan ever since. You might say that since "Stolen Moments," I've "grown" into "Slow Turning," "Bring the Family," "Perfectly Good Guitar" and the nice get-together on "Little Village." That said, I never tire of coming back to "Stolen Moments." It remains a staple of both my "road trip music" and my "kicking back at home" music. Well-expressed sentiments, nice licks, and clean production work. Without taking anything away from what are commonly deemed the Hiatt "classics," if you've never bought a John Hiatt album, this is a heck of a good place to start.