New Song. About the sirens I hear in class at Greenville. On the upcoming Pedalboy CD tentatively titled “CONRAD.”
Verses:
Sirens in a small town
Only can mean one thing:
Some old man
Is meeting his end.
This winter’s getting so long,
Ice to water, snow white to brown.
And age is a virtue
That will let you down.
Chorus:
Time can do you wrong.
You think you’ve got so long.
But each moment that passes
Doesn’t look back.
Verses:
Life is like a string quartet,
Listen while the beauty lasts.
When its over
is there an encore?
“Have a bit of this fruit,” she says,
“Apples are good for you,” she said.
My ugly insides are showing.
“That’s the price of, the price of knowing.”
I’m going to be doing a kinda live, kinda folksy acoustic project over the next month and a half or so with some of my school people, the venerable chase macri, the incomparable jonny weaver, and the recalcitrant jacob edwards. I don’t know why he’s recalcitrant. So i’m sitting at home thinking about it and I decide to demo a song just to see how it turns out to see if the song is ready or not. I say, “what the heck?” and bust out the old four-tracker and an sm57 mic and go to it. In like an hour I have a mixed finished version. Oh those were the days when you didn’t need to spend an entire semester recording 4 songs! Woo!!!
So here’s the song. it is tentatively titled “Vision” only because that’s like the first important word in the song. So call it what you like. Call it Charlie, Call it Mae West, Call it Vienna, Call it a cab, i don’t care. Here’s the link to the page you can download it from:
http://www.pedalboy.net/music/music.html
For those of you who like reading the lyrics and instruments used and such, read on.
———————
Vision Lyrics:
I’ve given you vision
But you use your eyes
The world is a small room
Its impossible to hide
In the corner
Where the shadows meet the light
Just like my life…
Is it wrong or is it right?
I’ve given you music
You hear what you want
I’m equally tempered
Perfectly wrong
The world is a small child
Singing along
Just like my life…
Is it right or is it wrong?
I’ve given you heartbreak
But you chose relief
And life is that cold place
from which you recede
I wish you’d believe in
what you could be
Just like my life
isn’t what I wanted from me.
I gave you patience
You gave me a bruise
I gave you my love,
So now whose is whose?
You said you don’t need me
I know that’s untrue
Just like my life
Never ended for you.
————————-
So that’s the song. I like it. I haven’t been able to write songs with choruses lately. I haven’t liked them much. So this song doesn’t have a chorus. Anymore. It used to, but I decided it was no good. So there’s a “B-section” for variety, but no chorus.
Tracks:
1) Rhythm acoustic guitar
2) Arpegiated acoustic guitar
3) Magnus Reed Organ – this awesome thing that is kinda like a harmonica crossed with an acordian crossed with a keyboard. Just set the mic right on top of the thing.
4) Vocal.
At the end of the 2nd verse, you can hear the tape drop out on the rhythm guitar part on the lyrics “is it wrong or is it right?” Ah analog… how quirky you are.
The top half of the register on the organ is out of tune, so i could only play certain notes.
And that’s that!
I dont’ have a name yet really. Has coolish chords, with a ii chord and whatnot. PLEASE leave comments.
Gather all your things and leave them by the street.
You know where I’ll be
Get up off your knees and follow me.
You know where I’ll be.
Wherever there’s a will there’s a way.
I want you to find me.
From where I stand there’s no other way.
You know where I’ll be.
Even lightening finds its way to the ground.
Find your way to me.
Even fire knows that it too can drown.
Drown yourself in me… Drown yourself in me.
And don’t let anybody tell you what you need.
I know you need me.
Cuz love never came packaged in greed.
You were made for me.
You know where I’ll be.
(shifts to a more minor tonality using a minor vi chord instead of the I.)
I pine away and I try to hear your voice
When its not cursing me.
I want to let my angels rejoice
If you’d only speak to me.
(i’m going to pick one of the following two verses, vote on which is better.)
Option A:
I know how you feel waiting by the phone,
waiting here on bended knee.
I know I have to let you alone,
If I want you to be free.
Option B:
Give an ear and try to filter out the noise.
Silence was the killer of me.
And you that I have no other choice
If I want you to be free.
So like 4 or 5 pretty good songs have fallen out of my skull in the past week or so, so I figured I’d share one with whoever decides to read this thing. The lyrics are printed below and you can listen to a crappy demo of what I have of it so far at http://www.pedalboy.net/aud/hey now baby demo.mp3. This is still a work in progress, but here it is as of 10-9-04.
Hey Now Baby.
C’mon baby, I wanna go to your place.
C’mon baby, I wanna see that look on your face.
Hey now darling, I wanna take you away.
Hey now darling, I want you tell me okay.
And you can lead the way where to go.
I can’t even tell you how I’ve missed you so.
C’mon baby, I wanna see your smile.
Alright baby, I wanna catch your eye.
I hope you know its ok, cuz i dig your style.
So put your baggage away, i’m gonna make you mine.
And you can lead the way where to go.
I can’t even tell you how I’ve missed you so.
And you can take me any where you go.
I can’t even let myself let you go.
So I’m trying to work up to the “write a song a day” thing that I told myself I would do this summer. Hopefully that will all get posted here. Here’s the beginnings of something I wrote last night I think (these days are all running together) and I started recording it tonight. Propellerhead’s Reason is one of the COOLEST programs out there. I have drums that are tight and bass this is pink floyd-ish and piano that doesn’t suck and guitars that will form a nice bassis for this project. So without further ado, the song.
To set the musical scene, the chord progression is kinda just an alternation of a B major to a C major chord. The bass is playing the augmented fourth now and then. The whole thing is rather creepy and stuff.
The lyrical idea:
Is there a time for shorter vision?
Is there a season to let your intruige fall by the wayside?
Cuz I want to let you crush my inhibition
And I want to learn to follow intuition.
So take me away.
Take me away.
I will post demo when there is demo. right now there is only a capella crap 3 am last night tape recorder recordings of me singing the bass line into the thing and the lyrics and melody so i wouldn’t forget them.
[probably inspired by the immense difficulty required to have a real conversation over a fake medium. This means you, aim.]
[kinda fast, kinda fun]
Okay,
we’ve been here all day,
so what do you want?
Our shadows
are getting a little
bit too long.
Can’t give you want you want, and I
don’t know what you need.
Please turn around.
Alright,
I got a life
I’m living down.
I can’t
make amends
to this town.
And I thought you were my ticket outta here
but it looks like I was wrong.
Are you coming down?
You been up in your tree so long
that I think the thin air’s messing with you
head and now you believe
That hangin round this coal-mine town is
just the thing to bring you back your soul,
make you happy… So you…
Sigh,
I’ll wait here all night,
for you to walk in.
I don’t
need to know
where you’ve been.
Cuz when I see the light in your eyes
starting to grow dim
that’s when I know.
[with a whimsical feel]
Sometimes I dream I lost my friends.
I told them lies that left them all defenseless
just to get away from their ugly pretenses
and let them know that I am fine alone.
Sometimes I throw out my guitar
or leave it burning and the ashes are scattered
but the muse inside just turns on in in laughter.
Seems he never shuts up.
Bad dreams… Life seems… like I’m half asleep.
Find myself on an overpass.
Souls fly by and I am driven to laughter
at the mere thought of life and death and after
and what it means to them.
Sometimes I lay down my life
and sacrifices are to great not to offer.
Dischord screaaaams, but peace is always softer.
And that’s the best we can do.
Bad dreams… Life seems… like I’m half asleep.
Give me time and it will work itself out.
That’s what I tell myself to drive away the doubt that things will
Ever change now.
And everybody must have days like these
And nights as lonely as the inside of me, yeah but
I can’t complain now.
I guess I found that the mistakes we make are the
Things that keep us wide awake yet
Bind us together.
I don’t profess to have all the answers and
Lord knows I can’t keep it all together the
Way you think I should be.
Bad dreams… Bad dreams…
[see extended for my comments]
Read More »
I know
you don’t
get out
that much
I guess
I can
see why.
I know
I’m not
alright
most times.
Anxious
Nervous
Not right.
The one
feeling
I get
that’s strong
enough
to feel
is bad.
You think
I’m so
special
I know.
I think
I let
you down.
