February Album Writing Month 2022

Sometimes I think, this situation requires an adult 
And I look around and realise it’s me.
Who the hell allowed that to happen?
Surely there’s someone more qualified, more prepared, more adult?
But there’s not and I realise there never was.
And that’s an existential crisis before breakfast…

We’re all just making it up, just tilting at windmills.

And I think, theres a lot of things I thought five ten years ago,
That were just complete bullshit, just flailing anger at all the wrong targets
But self awareness and kindness and realising that systems are cruel is like realising that
Maybe the adults and teachers you had didn’;t know better and it’s OK to be angry and it’s hard to forgive but you’ve gotta try and make it better, you know?
And that’s a lot of work, before end of business. 

We’re all just making it up, just tilting at windmills.
Hopefully trying to do what’s right.

FAWM 2022

Don Quixote

I started off trying to do an upbeat song but it went a bit goth, so I leaned into that. Lyrics are inspired by a tweet from a pal.

A Shimmering Bouquet of Crows 

Gather in the dark
A murder in the shade
To find a special place
To spread our wings out wide
to show a painted face
Let the endless outside

I perceive in liminal flow
A shimmering bouquet of crows

Shed our mortal masks
Let down the masquerade
To open up the space
Our arms are open wide
Wash away the taste
Of the day we left behind

I perceive in liminal flow
A shimmering bouquet of crows

To open up with space
To spread our wings out wide
to show a painted face
Let the endless outside

I perceive in liminal flow
A shimmering bouquet of crows

A Shimmering Bouquet of Crows

Tried to write an upbeat song in a scale I'd usually use for metal. It kinda worked.

Doom Boxes

What did I come in here for?

I’ve got something in mind I might forget
I’ve got a great idea I might regret, again
It makes me move

I’ve got eighty high definition thoughts
I’ve got something in the fridge starting to rot, oh yeah
I should do something about that

I’ve got something to do,
It’s written down, somewhere
I’m hacking through my programming to find it

Hey,
Did you ever think that, maybe.. Never mind

I’ve got a dozen black marks against my name
And a multiplying pile of plastic shame, I plan
To deal with soon

I’ve got seventeen things to do at once,
Pushing all this stuff in a doom box for now,
I guess that’ll do

I’ve got something to do,
It’s written down, somewhere
I’m hacking through my programming to find it
To find it
To find it
To find myself

Hey,
So, I spoke to the doctor the other day..

A lifetime of underperformance with
A self worth tied to what I’ve done, oh yeah
It’s like a noose
I’m ticking off boxes, making lists
Got an alarm set remind me to drink oh yeah
Im an adult

Doom Boxes (v2)

Tried to write something off a funk drumbeat, aiming at a sort of Rage Against the Machine feel and given I'm into Warhammer 40-k, the beat suggested the refrain and I went a bit political with it.

The Emperor Protects

Burn the heretic
Oppression
Kill the mutant
Projection
Purge the unclean
Infection
The emperor protects
He’s naked

Suffer not the witch
Oppression
Refuse the xeno filth
Projection
Attain our destiny
All nations
Die for God and creed
abomination

Build it back better
Purgation
Make it great again
Inflation
Refuse to be replaced
Conflation
His invisible hand
Descension

The Emperor protects
No clothes
The emperor protetcs
No soul
The emperor protects
His own
The emperor protects
He’s naked

You are so blessed in his Light
Exterminatus gaze
Spending lives like coin to find
Anathema remains

The Emperor Protects

A few days behind in my FAWM projects so I rolled up some random chords and asked pals for some prompts. This is also for the one-note-melody challenge. Aiming at a sort of QOTSA vibe with an angst, sweaty Scottish frontman.

Tuckered

I didn’t ask to be put into a neat little pocket
I didn’t ask for this milquetoast version of society
I don’t want your crocodile tears
Or your performative rage
I didn’t ask to be born with teeth bared
I didn’t ask for this perpetual sense of existential dread

And the world say
Come the fuck in or fuck the fuck off

And yeah, I didn’t ask to be put into a nice little pocket
I didn’t ask for this milquetoast, constructed version of a society
I definitely don’t want your performative tears
I definitely don;t want yo0ur crocodile rage
I didn’t ask to be born with teeth bared
I definitely didn’t want this persistent sense of existential dread

But you know what?

Come the fuck in, or fuck the fuck off x 2

Tuckered

I remember that I hadn't used my new resonator at all during FAWM and that kinda slid to men a sort of southern gothic vibe. Ish.

Lyrics
They called the last month the blackness,
And the first the wolf burrow.
From the blood of hosts murdered in violation of guest welcome
And women dooked and burned as withes,
This last has remembers.

From people murdered so their body parts could be sold to doctors,
To cannibals in the hills, and generations bought & sold for oil and gold,
Theres a reason we plant rowan trees against evil spirits
And the land remembers.

We wear it well, with smiles and arms open wide,
But we drink too much and hold each other back.
From rogues and revenants, this land resonates
Sick saints and sinners, to sleekit saviours, this land needs a saining.

Or we’ll never deserve better.
And that kills me.

Resonance (Caledonian Gothic)

chriscrowing