A spot better known to the locals as the Endrick River, but always Tiger Snake Creek to us. We were lucky this time to be serenaded by Eastern whip birds.

Tiger Snake Creek whipbirds

Final assignment for Coursera songrwriting course (week 6).

On this final version, I've played around a little with harmony (because I love it!), so on some lines the harmony is front heavy while the lead vocal is back heavy. The F/B indicators below are for the lead vocal, not the harmonies.

Odds & Ends
V1:
(F) Sifting the odds and the ends of a life,
(B) Husks and echoes that reek of decay.
(B) Keys and pennies, the clothes that lie empty
(F) Unmoored from their keeper who now becomes clay.
(F) What memories lie in these dusty old boxes?
(F) What gossip told over needle and thread?
(F) What cheerful children played long-faded checkers?
(B) Each sad object a note from the dead.

Chos:
(B) Odds and ends of a life,
(F) These crazy-quilt pieces that cleave to a place.
(F) Each has a storyline,
(F) Each speaks of yesterday,
(F) Not much to show for a lifetime.

V2:
(F) Tablecloth, razorblades, photos and clock,
(B) Each unfettered and floating in time.
(B) Simply flotsam the future sweeps from us,
(F) Austere, removed from their own storyline.
(F) What do I know of this angry old woman
(F) Whose life became straitened and sadly severe?
(F) Her things cannot show me her youth or her laughter -
(B) Both so long disappeared.

Chos:
(B) Odds and ends of a life,
(F) These crazy-quilt pieces that cleave to a place.
(B) Each a storyline,
(B) Each its yesterday,
(F) Not much to show for a lifetime.

Bridge:
(F) Around me, expressions of my life well-travelled -
(B) How long until it too unravels?

V3:
(F) The day will then come when my own children grown
(B) Will sift my own odds and ends. 
(F) They'll come to my albums and journals as pilgrims,
(F) Their journey will sing my own requiem. [Dies irae]
(F) What will they think as they look at my snapshots,
(B) Will they see the woman I am?
(F) Or will I have travelled so far, fast behind them - 
(F) That distance obscures the lens?

Chos:
(B) Odds and ends of a life,
(F) These crazy-quilt pieces that cleave to a place.
(B) Each a storyline,
(B) Each its yesterday,
(F) Not much to show for a lifetime.

Odds and Ends FINAL

Something we recorded as Tursacan many years back - the tune is Chylde Owlett, a fairly grisly murder ballad recorded by Peggy Seeger, Steeleye Span and Alistair Hulett. I liked the tune but found the words a little too gruesome (even though I do love a good murder ballad). So it was serendipitous that one afternoon I discovered that Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky fitted the tune perfectly. 

The percussionist and didge player is Mark Campbell - https://soundcloud.com/#rhythmatist_united
Cellist is Brendan Rick.

Sea Flower