Oh, the visual prompt!! It's amazing how many great songs can be inspired by the same picture. I am a little bit sensible talking about death (I've got some unresolved issues with that) so both songs really got to me. This is a beautiful song, Erin <3

Oh my. I hear so much in this one. Stunning imagery and timeless sentiment. There's a choir in my head surrounding your voice, there are drums and cymbals and violins and cellos and church bells and chimes and a saxophone and an organ and an electric bass and and and and .... and sometime it all still gets really quiet and makes room for the prayer I hear here. Maybe you are Townes Van Zandt's long lost sister and this song channels all the joy he wanted to find.

Copyright 2016.
All Rights Reserved.

Photo Credit: Katie Elaine of the blog "sharp & keen"
https://sharpandkeen.wordpress.com/
Highgate Cemetery, London, England

Lay me in the garden
'neath the trees
Lay me in the garden
Somewhere to feel the breeze

Somewhere it is calm
Somewhere it is mellow
Somewhere you can stop to say, "Hello"
Lay me in the garden

When it is my time to go
Don't hold on - let me go
I'm going to a place where joy never ends
And until you join me there

Lay me in the garden
'neath the trees
Lay me in the garden
Somewhere to feel the breeze

Somewhere it is quiet
Somewhere it is mild
Somewhere you can stop and stay a while
Lay me in the garden

Don't put me in the mountains
So rude, cold, and bare
Don't put me in the wind,
You'll never find me there

Don't put me in the water
For I may never reach the shore
Don't put me in the fire,
I don't care to burn

Lay me in the garden
'neath the trees
Lay me in the garden
Somewhere to feel the breeze

Somewhere it is warm
Somewhere it is bright
Somewhere where you'll know I'll be alright
Lay me in the garden

Lay Me In The Garden

In which he finally says goodbye.

Credits: 
Drums by Tyler Wang

*****

San Francisco Summer Rain

never did we say goodbye
your love got me wondering why 
summers are cold in San Francisco

I fell for you when I was new to the city
between burritos and graffiti
that fall sunny day

a winter stroll, head over hills in potrero
one last kiss at the embarcadero
still don't know why

I should have gone that last sunny day
long long before that I had to learn
your love's like San Francisco summer rain

and all my blues trace back to you 
but tomorrow they won't cause anymore sorrow
so long, goodbye

I should have gone that last sunny day
long long before that I had to learn
your love's like San Francisco, 
it's very expensive, 
full of men that work in tech,
it's overrated

and all my blues trace back to you 
but tomorrow you'll be someone else's trouble
good luck with that, arrivederci
adieu, so long, good bye

Cityscapes

San Francisco Summer Rain

In which he is back at being ten, snow is falling and he can't go outside. All he can do is imagine what it feels and sounds like through a window. He sees other kids making snowmen and having epic snow fights. It's a vicarious experience. It's intuitive, empathetic but ultimately not the real thing.

A Snow Waltz

In which he is visited in dreams by the angry spirit of Music Past. Awaken and afraid of hereafter punishment, he writes the words he can remember, the rest we will never know. 

(I wrote this song when I was around 15. 17 years later, I can finally pay the due homage)

Credits: 
Drums by Tyler Wang

*****

Incoherencia

Que me pase yo la vida
únicamente pensando en tu amor
que me gaste el universo,
los planetas, las estrellas y el sol

Que me parta en mil pedazos
se me nublen las ideas por un rato
me traicionen los amigos
por corruptos y quien sabe que tanto

Es una incoherencia, signos de demencia,
es falta de paciencia o mera coincidencia,
mi poca inteligencia, mi falta de congruencia
dime lo que piensas, es una incoherencia?

Y aunque pase todo esto
no podrán sacarme ni un sólo gesto
y aunque llore por instantes
no saldrán ilesos ni adelante

Que me parta en mil pedazos
se me nublen las ideas por un rato
me traicionen los amigos
por corruptos y quien sabe que tanto

Y es que puedo despertarme así...

Es una incoherencia, signos de demencia,
es falta de paciencia o mera coincidencia,
mi poca inteligencia, mi falta de congruencia
dime lo que piensas, es una incoherencia?

Incoherencia

I feel like I may preface too many songs this way, but here goes...

"I have no idea where this came from."

Guess I was in a jazzy mood this time around. I have to thank the old, out of tune, upright piano that's been chilling in the living room for being so inspiring. 

What's it all about? Dunno. Introversion? Quit being a racist asshole? The plight of urban vampires? Sure, why not...

SIDEWALK

On the sidewalk, the side on which you walk has so much to say. Eyes cast down, straight line, no sound, and a bit of shame. 

But when the lights go down, so much easier blending in and out. In the shadows there's no color. With no color there's no "other", and I finally feel fine. Feet don't fail me now. On the sidewalk.

Oh I'm taking night over day every time. Oh I'm taking night over day every time 'cause it's better. Sunlight can leave it all behind on the sidewalk. 

On the sidewalk, the side on which you walk has so much to say. Eyes cast down, straight line, no sound, and a bit of shame. 

But when the lights go down, so much easier blending in and out. In the shadows there's no color. With no color there's no "other", and I finally feel fine. Feet don't fail me now. On the sidewalk.

79 shuffn 01 : Sidewalk

Here is a sort of rebirth of this song.  I started it years ago, at one time blending it with another song, then returning it to a simple A/B and now going back to the blend with some shearing of lyrics. 

When I wrote this around 2007, it was started with a lyric that I forgot to even include in this iteration, "I'll see you on the other side."

C & I had hitchhiked up from a bad spot in Hawaii, the one where the lava flows now.  After the crystal-eyed truck driver dropped us off at a closing car-rental desk, I tried to give him a few of my dollars for gas.  He brushed it off and said, "I'll see you on the other side, there's a full moon party tonight." 

The island as a place of love and giving and full-moon parties was a bit at odds with the news of war and destruction and drones and contractors and war companies etc.  I was in love.  We were at war.  

This song was the first of what became a theme for me over a couple of albums, "Those Magnificent Bastards, Leave Yourself Alone (Lost at War) and Rest & Resist."  I didn't want to arbitrarily smash love and war into every song, but I found myself playing one off the other so much that I let it flow.  Soon I realized it was a natural reflection of love in time of war and it wasn't so strange to put them into song, rather weirder to try and separate love from the war.  THAT is what felt inauthentic.  

I still strike at those dual themes a lot, I'll probably do it forever, ideally getting better at tightening the seam between the two.

So I put this together last week and mixed it up last night after a hot drive across the Ozarks to my empty porch. 

This Island - Marty Shutter (2007, 08, 18) 
SONG A WEEK 

this island is a ring around my eye
and it takes me in the night
and it burns in my mind

and they say 
we're enemies of our state
we're the trojans at our gate
they're gonna beat us into believers 

and they say we're enemies of our state
we're the trojans at our gate
gonna beat us into believing

when they know the ground is moving
and it has nothing to do then
with me and you

and you seem fairly certain
that when we go 
yeah we go
and then we're gone

if there's something I’m learning
it's when you go
you're never gone
you're never gone

when you go 
you never go
you're never gone

when you go you never gone
you're never gone

and when you go 
you're never gone
you're never gone

their white houses
black waters
with birds they control



in their towers 
oh they're dancin' on our dime

and you seem fairly certain
that when we go
yeah we're gone 
yeah we're gone

and if there’s something I’m learning
it's when you go, you're never gone
you're never gone

when you go you’re never gone 
when you go you're never gone
when you go you’re never gone 
you're never gone

when you go you never gone you're never gone
when you go you never go you're never gone
if there's something I’m learning
when you never go you never gone

you never go you're never gone.

This Island v2018

Cold and flu remedy   Audio Recording 2018 - 07 - 22 17 - 04 - 26[1]

Please treat this track as a biological PSA ;-)

Who am I of a million things? A host to parasites living peacefully?
Most of my weight isn't really me, and most of my sight isn't really seen. 

Who am I?

All we are is unnatural. Each cell lives for a little while. As time goes by we're somebody else. Live and die in parallel. 

Who am I in this menagerie? Leader of it all or a nobody?
After I'm gone there will surely be pieces living on for eternity. 

All we are is unnatural. Each cell lives for a little while. As time goes by we're somebody else. Live and die in parallel.

81 huwha 04 :  Good Question

I wanted to make  swinging rock track this week, so I improvised a guitar line and built the song out around it, borrowing here and there from tricks I've honed over time.  

Written about an emotion I experienced early in my 20's.  It happened first at an evening gathering of friends.  I stood in my living room watching friends argue and laugh and debate and question, exploding into theirselves and experimenting loudly with what it meant to be them. 

Watching them, I had a sudden urge to be everywhere at once, in every living room like mine... I saw the whole of humanity as friends I hadn't met.. which gave me great excitement and sadness at the same time.   This song is a slight testament to that emotion.  It's also poking fun at tiny radii, and at its root a love song the ones built to run away... even if it's only to the next town over. 

Oh an Zod is an homage to Zak Hathaway's "Legend of Zod." 

Cheers, enjoy!

I still want to see 
everyone there is to see
I still want to be everywhere

There's so many of me
another of you 
I'll never meet.

Cause Zod only knows
the children they grow
in the labs
of the cities and suburbs
an hour or so away

There was a photo projection
friends of friends
it was nice
but it's not what you wanted

Zod only knows
yeah
the children they grow
in the labs of the cities and suburbs
an hour or so away

when time goes on 
yeah
you find one of them 
to love
in the cities and suburbs
an hour or so away

Zod only knows
yeah
the children they grow
in the labs
of the cities and suburbs
an hour or so away

time goes on 
you find one of them 
to love
and you go off to 
the cities and suburbs
an hour or so away

Cities & Suburbs

Recorded at 20th Century Fox as part of the 2018 ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop

Original scene from "A Cure for Wellness"

2018 ASCAP Scoring Workshop - Jesi Nelson

A fun, upbeat, romantically optimistic duet about new beginnings

Joy And The Pursuit Of

Something More Than Me

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