What do *you* use when changing life-lanes?

******************************

LYRICS

Humans claim that they don't play games
world keeps running on 
signals signals

Cue the sting, whatchoo wanna bring
What lies in your heart bio loom nascent to mouth
let me sing

What's wrong with a bit of honest signaling?
What's wrong with a bit of honest signaling?
What's wrong what's wrong what's wrong what?

Red string, who you wanna ring
Playin' with your part toxin bloom inflamin' the south
do your thing

(People pleased just to lay down blame)
(say they're slaves to the)
(signals signals)

What's wrong with a bit of scented signaling?
What's wrong with a bit of honest signaling?
What's wrong what's wrong what's wrong what?

***

Accrue the bling, down giants with a sling
What cries through dead arts diode doom pacing you out
take your swing

What's wrong with a bit of costly signaling?
What's wrong with a bit of honest signaling?
What's wrong what's wrong what's wrong what?

Cue the sting, whatchoo wanna bring 
What lies in your heart bio loom nascent to mouth
let me sing

(People pleased just to lay down blame)
(say they're slaves to the)
(signals signals)

What's wrong with a bit of honest signaling? 
What's wrong with a bit of honest signaling?
What's wrong what's wrong what's wrong what?

*****

Signals

I've always been chasing, really...

(Shifting gears with this one, channeling a hint of retro French ballad/a dash of synthpop layering/a dollop of days gone by vibe while not-so-subtly self-retrospectively fanboy-idolizing the most important influence in my life... a wholly fictional character.)

*****************************************
Full disclosure: This is really @steve-fullyard's fault (with maybe @john-termaat 's latest track "Only You" also sharing some of the blame...). After coming across his own musical offerings a month or so ago, his timeless old-school synthwave vibe, ridiculous creativity, and a dedication to some days not that far passed struck all the right nostalgic chords and essentially forced me to come up with this latest oddity.  I wouldn't blame you if you went over and listened to his works and likewise Actively Vision-fell into the same delightful Pitfall I did...


**********************************
LYRICS

Il était une fois un p'tit garçon tête-tordu
Ah 
quelle scène pitoyable

Du jour à nuit il s'enfuit 
dans ses visions infinies 
missions vivides, le chevalier des chavirés

Chaque année, sait naviger yeux cillants d'ses idees
pas une fois encore naufré
littoral jaimais touché
s'apprend de plus à chaque journée
échapper les récifs, mots surjetés, 
ces bancs sablés cachés sous vagues, 
nausée dite  
réalité

Il était une fois

***

The windmill thrives
When the Zephyr blows

The dream survives
Where the tide swell grows
The sailor sighs
carried down by flows

The sun's slow rise
over fresh-knit snows
While rainbows cry
For all that we know

And the end draws nigh
While the Zephyr...

*****************************************

Le p'tit garçon - The Windmill

I've been accused of worse...

***********************************************
Just one of those can't-stop-brain-from-humming days today, where something pops in your head and the only way to purge oneself is to make a tiny simple track out of it asap.

LYRICS
Accuse me of magic but
Nothin's up my sleeve

While world tries to sell me
Pop-ups to believe

Guess I'll try breathing
Maybe the air sets me free

I swear it's this easy
Just open my eyes to see

***********************************************

Accuse Me

Something more traditional/folksy I've been chipping away at for a bit, struggling to flesh it out with more instrumentation. However, the more I listen to its currently bare-cupboard, acoustic vocals+piano arrangement, maybe it's simply *meant* to remain rough and rudimentary?

So please pay no attention to the little finger flubs here and there, and just let yourself get washed over by the orange waves of the Northumberland Strait, where I grew up and where my childish heart still beats.

***

Orange waves crash then go
Stealing sand with its ebb and flow
Holes dotting cliffsides' red clay
Where the swallows sleeping lay

Beyond green edge a homestead puffs away
Hurls hardwood smoke through cold blue
Rocking chairs paired, slowly rotting grey

Island smiles from across the way
Thin dark line splits Strait and sky
It flickers ghostly, hovers fey
Once Ile Saint-Jean, now PEI

Each flat stone we throw from the beach
With dreams to skip, perhaps to fly
All doomed to sink, the island never reached
Drowning jealous of the driftwood swimming by

As full moon flirts with blushing tide
Salt waters sink and sandbars swell
Before they change their minds and hide
I take their path to Mount Carmel

Beyond green edge a homestead puffs away
Hurls hardwood smoke through cold blue
Rocking chairs paired, slowly rotting grey

At Trois-Ruisseaux I wait for you
At Trois-Ruisseaux I wait for you
Trois-Ruisseaux

Orange Waves (acoustic rough)

Been accidentally projecting a false sense of normalcy of musical late. This new snippet is meant to rectify that and restore the odd-sam i-m balance...

(...or maybe I just like to make up weird vocals 'cause the Down Below wants what the Down Below wants?)


************************************************
Miss Information shoving every to and fro
Quivering mass of hips no-stare these here-oh-types you know
From the tik-tok timing of the clik-clok priming money-making 
          Shutter-griming of your neural flow

Miss Information shoving every to and fro
Quivering mass of hips no-stare these here-oh-types you know
From the tik-tok timing of the clik-clok priming money-making 
          Shutter-griming of your neural flow

But WHOAAAAA... 
take
it 
slow 

Neck Deep in the social snow
Stat-ick stream of ins-and-outs
but don't forget to breathe
and Let yourself fall
Fall to the Down Below

and Let yourself fall
Fall
Fall to your Down Below

************************************************


[and yes, all those vocals are just me and a bit of reverb -- no other effects or sound trickery. I really *can* sound that weird and creepy.]

The Down Below

Why does this You-n-I-verse allow the Best of Us to Age and Crumble when they have given us so much and asked for so little in return?

True Superheroes should live forever, g-dammit.

********************************************
LYRICS

After the first, Scared shadow of a man
stares at me 
and says “I see myself, son’s eyes scream everything”

Then he says,

“Not so long ago, I’m in your place, 
glare at own dad’s face
and hear myself, Confused and questioning”

At what moment in the growing weight 
of a life does it break one’s back
at what point does one run away from the light
and pray to fade through to the black?

He struggles to explain, 
but thought and memory soar free 
from a plaintive self
the strain so deafening

In this fluorescent silence 
a gap of decades 
and five feet separate our selves
why can’t I say anything?

Awkward moments, statements slur together, 
can’t even sense if he is still himself
where is the one who for years kept us glued together?

Where is the father who raised us from the start
that Big Red lug who moved mountains 
with his superman heart
Where is that strength when he needs it to live
Why does world take from one who only knows how to give?

***

Second time worse, three days and nights in straps and drips, 
full-intubated self
scared, darting eyes that don’t see anything

At what moment in the growing weight 
of a life does it break one’s back
at what point does one run away from the light 
and pray to fade through to the black?

Where is the father who raised us from the start
that Big Red lug who moved mountains 
with his superman heart
where is that strength when he needs it the most
how do I stop a soul from leaving its fraying host?

Moving Mountains - The Two Attempts

I am sorry for my absence. 

But I am much more sorry for having lost my father on May 24, 2022. He was far too good for this world, yet this world was never nearly as good to him in return. 

Please give me time. *He* certainly wasn't given enough, and this ungrateful world is so much poorer for it.

Still Not Really Making Progress (rough sketch of times)

Still processing my father's loss, and struggling to put fingers to keys of late. But I know that I need to push through this wail and return to the you-n-i-verse eventually.

He'd want it that way.

***************
LYRICS

The Truth about axes
is they smash through the frays
of the eyes and the neighs,
chunk rough trunks in their ways,
but harvest vines and scythed hays
are immune somehow

And then my father died


The thing about truths
is they burst veins with their use
as they bump and they bruise
debase and abuse
while made-up monks gussy down for pastel plaster plays,
giddy-thrup and are amused somehow

As they watch my father die


To axe about things
that make wishes with rings
grains of sooth waxed to wings
whether leather or feather
they weather the soul with
the truths that they bring
sun-drunk lay in their daze 
flippant, mince with loose ways
and flap lips like goosed fools

While my father dies

The Truth About Axes

It's been far too long and I may be too far gone, yet the You-N-I-verse has not given up on me... 

This June, I skulk in the Panhandle State -- 13 months after dad slipped away -- and for somewhy, my Down Below thrums again.

This is an intro teaser track, to maybe wet pallets while I weigh means to whet my Muse-aic-all Stone. Yeah, it's a word-less shortie, but I am seized by the worlds beyond, wherein percolates much more.

An album beckons. Just you wait.

Getting Back In Game -(Teaser Intro for an album)

I am ME, and I am You-min. Anything else within these two lines is simply... All Good. 

Making up boxes, no matter how one frames it, is just prop-a-gating the same ole' divisive cracks under a fresh coat of bad faith-paint. So stop marking up tribal bounds, and instead, let's all BOND within the only Spectrum that should really matter: this gorgeous You-n-I-verse that we all share.

****************************************************  
LYRICS

How do you grope about
with eyes popped wide when there's no view 
of what stretches behind the salt suss-pression of 
your sticky-sweater skin?

Do fingers ball up, full exploratory-like
Flail away in fistfuls
Fuzzy flurry of Punch & Ply
Do digits dance delicate 'twixt the dunes
to dowse what fiery diary swells within?

***

Why do we trope around
Big Lies plopped down wide open, peer-review
a spectrum skew molded by-the-bi trap within?

Genitalia vibrant stroke impressions
Hexadex or Binary, veiled hue expression
'Box be box' in spite of facets or dimension --
it still walls us in...

***

What makes a fellah-fellah
...stakes a sistah-sistah
...slakes a mallow-yellow
...wakes a mistah
Whoda howda whyda focus on special 
kindsa tribal lines and gloves?

What fakes a feelah-feelah
...cakes a mistah-sistah
...shakes a twistah-listah
...breaks a blistah
why wouldn't ya want an all-encompassing 
kinda it's-all-good full life to love?

***

Why do the hokey-pocus
...lose the larger focus
...choose the lie that chokes us
...rue the roost with spose-dahs?

You R you N you Are you-min
time to toss the tribes
and share one

LOVE

****************************************************

Gro(w)ping Thru The F(l)og

Originally this was going to be a sing-songy track, but then my fingers couldn't stop strolling in the deep end deed-tales, and now we're all entangled by yet another instru-mental.

Soar-y.

In The Weeds, Fingers Entangled Firmamently

Just cause -- we don't have enough to worry about...

**************************************************

LYRICS
(What's in your brain?)
(Its seams are starting to strain...)
(What's on your mind?)
(It seems it's not all that kind...)

((I'm sure I see you))
((I think I know you))
((I'd swear I love you))
((Why can't you feel the same?))

***

See to Sea -- so many exposures
Eye to I -- don't wanna cry, ain't gonna fly
I wanna feel just fine -- I want what's mine
Why do we have to draw these lines?

(((Told to distrust you)))
(((Not to discuss you)))
(((I'm taught to hate you)))
(((Why won't you take the blame?)))

You to me -- so many explosions
Eye for an aye -- the bodies' lie, don't wanna die
A cross, a field of mines -- a bloody grind
How did we all become so blind?


**************************************************
[Written/recorded while down in Siesta Key in May 2024, using only my laptop's crappy onboard mic for vocals. The message behind the mess still comes through loud and clear, though (i hope)...]

Warry Wort

What's the point of Peace-preaching if all we're leaving are pieces?

*********************************
LYRICS

If you had to put a price on Paradise
Well, just a slice
How do you tally the bill?
Is an acre too much?
How much crypto for a human's touch?
What would it take just to...
What would it take just to chill?

In-turned nights, tossed brain-throw fights
The cool side can't win
Hot heads they churn heavy through thought-cycle's wince and spin
Even dreams' textured psy-naps are brute relief with no peace
But pieces, de-fragments, mess-eye-ache release

***

If you had to put a price on Paradise
What would suffice
Who would I have to kill?
Is a country too much?
What appropriation for a Culture's clutch?
How much wine should I...
How much blood should I spill?

Even dreams' textured psy-naps are brute relief with no peace
But pieces, de-fragments, mess-eye-ache release

***

If you had to put a price on Paradise
Just roll them dice
Would it be your god's will?
Is a being of light getting off sleight-
Outta-hand with his peoples' plight?
How many holes must we...
How many graves must we fill?


*********************************
[again, created/recorded while down in Siesta Key in May 2024, using only my crappy lappy mic, so pretty raw... but maybe that's part of the point?]

The Paradise Price (acoustic / lo-fi)

Hey.

Sometimes ya just *gotta* take a wave to the face.

 
 
*************************************************************
Brute-force-cheeseballing the chill vibe of the old beach music of days long gone -- the fun, lighthearted stuff that my parents and in-laws still can't get enough of from their own hey-day when beach-bumming was not just a once-in-a-blue-moon-weekend grind-getaway, but a lifestyle.

I am extremely fortunate in that, for 7 times now in my adulting-in-progress life, I have been able to escape south to Siesta Key, FL with Meaghan's family for a week or two (just like I am right now), and if there is one thing that they have taught me, it's how to beach-bum just right:
 
Step 1. Wake up, pack a lunch and go to beach. 
Step 2: Take a wave to the face. 
Step 3: Go to sleep, and dream about following the very same steps the next day.

***
LYRICS
Take a wave, take a wave, take a wave
To the Face
(etc.)

Let it slap some sense in ya


Don't matter if you're rich or poor
Wave to the face 
and your sense of entitlement's out the door

Can crest real high or sink down low
Jump Over Dive through, what do you do, 
here comes another wave slappin' straight for you

Won't matter the pigment that you sport
Wave to the face 
is an impartial, sea-slap-giving sort

No difference, your culture or your creed
Wave to the face 
has got the common-sense slapping 
that we humans need

*************************************************
[still using the same crappy lappy mic and getting away with it so far. I mean, no Music Engineer Cops have been banging on my door yet to charge me for Vocal Crimes Against Humanity...]

Take a Wave to the Face

Hey, wait... was I gone and/or am I here again? Does a France-wah fart in the forest?

***
LYRICS

Been away, but I'm fixin' to amble over
Promise I won't stay too long
C'mon -- what do you say? 
S'been a while since i trampled your clover
I swear -- this time there'll be
No gamble by shamble-ramblin' 

Why today? well, that's a very good question 
Perhaps to gloss over
Truly didn't mean to stray, 
Wasn't up to anything wrong
But you know how it is -- 
Things crop up that are hard 
When it gets pitch dark and colder
I surely hope that i am not being too forward 
Or laying it a little too
Laying it a little too
Laying it a little too 
Strong?

***

not like the nights when it               felt
                                       easy; 
nowadays, i feel much 
                                                                    older
so please -- 
won't you                                just 
play along

Away But Fixin to Amble Over

If one rings in the New Ear, does that mean they have tin-new-tus?

(Just an odd little piece to stumble into 2025 on a light-ear foot, after my seriousoussous-er songstuff of late...)

****************************************
LYRICS
Can you feel the new year snaking in as the old leaks out it's fading
can you breathe this new beginning pushing out the old air's failings

zubba zey zey
zubba zubba zey
zubba zey
zubba zubba zey 
zubba zey 
zubba zubba zubba zey
zubba zey zey
zubba zubba zey zey
zey
 
zubba zubba zey 
zubba zey zey
zubba zubba zey
zubba zey
zubba zey zey
zubba zubba zubba zubba zey
zubba zey
zubba zubba zey
zubba zey zey

zubba zey zey zey
zubba zubba zey
zubba zey
zubba zubba zey 
zubba zey 
zubba zubba zubba zey
zubba zey zey
zubba zubba zey zey
zey

zubba zubba zubba


it's the new ear / weird
same as the old ear / weird

************************************************

New Ear

"May you live in interesting times"...

Hm. Maybe we need to go back to boring. It seemed less... glowballsy dis-turbulating?

************************************************
LYRICS

Can't help but feelin' that I've been here before
The tension vibrates through my skin to the core
Around me bodies fall like flies to the floor
As i bust through the ranks like a ram through your door
Can't help but feelin'

Around me bodies fall like flies
Around me bodies fall like flies
Can't help but feelin'

Broad cast for reelin' what i frame you to be
Remake the fabric of your digital sea
Surrounding bodies of stars scar my eyes and i scream
as the universe melts, pixel dust rends the scene

Surrounding bodies of stars scar my eyes
Surrounding bodies of stars scar my eyes
Surrounding bodies 
Leave me reelin' reelin'

Now disbelievin' seems much easier to me
Hiss-story shifts to fruitful web-rooted tree
Entangled 'bodiment snakes 'cross the floor
Sinks its teeth in your flesh venom scores new view see
now you're free

Re-brand my truth to surround you in lies
Robot my truth to compound you in lies
Re-boot my truth
ground you in lies

Can't help but feelin' that I've been here before
Broad cast for reelin' what i frame you to be
Now disbelievin' seems much easier to me
Around me bodies fall like flies
Leave me reelin'


************************************************
Recorded and mixed on a new (10 years overdue) lappy, using its crappy lappy mic (surprisingly not that crappy) in a Siesta Key rented room that exudes far too much white inundustrial noise, but not mastered yet because i forgot to download my old mastering S/W from my old crappy lappy (you were never crappy old lappy, but you just couldn't keep up anymore. Hope your new home and its fantasmical godchild creatrix will treat you better than i ever did...).

I've Been Here Before (unmastered)

One of my first song ideas from a few years back, a bittersweet celebration of my Acadian heritage? I'd certainly love for some talented guitarist (and/or vocalist)to transform my faux-picking draft into something much more worthy of my people!

Meanderthal

Jeunes du Tchoin

Unsolicited Frank-ish commentary after having been exposed to one too many holiday commercials during my precious, limited hockey-enjoyment time...

(...apparently, I unconsciously channel subtle 90s grungey Vedderisms via my vox box  when I rail against the holidays?)

*********************************
Why need a season for a happy reason?
Live to Love
Love to Live

Why is it that come each holiday
The message you hear hi-def angels most say
Is that sharing and caring are the True and Only Ways?
Make it all about friends and family
Advertisers scream on the web, and tout on TV
But can we depend on spin-cycle slanting -- artful canting 
For you to spend?

I'm not saying anything new; it's hardly news...
Suess sussed it out, clinched the Spirit with a Grinch
Love's what we need
But why keep it to one pinch?
Ian's Tull Tale warns of False Flag Stuffing,
This focus on a handful of birds, a fistful of rings
365, not 12, 's where goodwill needs to dwell
Why is this such a hard sell??

You spawn with infinite Free Plays for Love in this short life
So share some in any way on *any* day, make it yours
To give
Don't spend all year, waiting for that special time
Love Now
Love Now
There'll still be more to Love tomorrow...

***
[LAST EDIT: July 10, 2020 -- remixed, minor corrections and tweaks, and Mastered for first time ever.]

[EDIT: January 1, 2020 -- remixed, with new arrangement. Still need to re-do vocals w/ at least *some* compression, though...]

AnyDay Song

Something stuck deep down in my craw that came gushing out about the one single person who fills me with infinite oooh and awe; the sole reason for my successful survival that I  so desperately never want to scare away...

[ADDED NOTE: this is my own final version of the original stripped-down vocal/piano snippet shared with the other two of the Tres ODDmigos when I first was thinking about seeking assistance with percussion and style, then decided to incite a wacky three-person, four-part experiment/challenge with both @goodboycheerleader and @lossketches that somehow amusingly resulted in my own interpretation of my own sketch ultimately having NO percussion whatsoever!

And for that, I must blame the magnificent Kishi Bashi (https://www.kishibashi.com), whose 2015 'String Quartet Live' album absolutely enraptured me while I was recently recovering from a nasty puck-to-throat injury...

Mr. Steak, you are truly Grade A!!!]

***************************************************

If I snuck snippets of feeling in poems or plays,
Would you divine their true meaning?
If I plunked passions toward you in some rhythmical way,
Would you catch what I was gleaning?
How could I smile at you with more than lips and eyes
So you’d know just what I’m scheming?
What can I say or do so it’s no surprise?

When you get dressed by the bed before you go away
You always set my insides screaming
Replaying that scene in my head through the rest of the day
Sweet torturous form of daydreaming
What kind of spell could I weave to hypnotize
Entice you into never leaving?
What can I say or do so it’s no surprise?

What sequence of syllables strung to suggest I come in
Will open your doors for an evening?
What password of fingers soft tracing bare glistening skin
Will crack your code, send senses reeling?
What kind of charm could I spin to mesmerize
Beguile you into true believing?
Each moment of frenzy and firework in your eyes

Heated proof that we’re not dreaming...

What can I say or do so it’s no surprise?

***************************************************

No Surprise (Francois Strung-out-O-vision)

A frenetically soul-full, Frank-ciful re-imagining of a fantastic Paula Varela (@themetaphorsenthusiast20)original acoustic song, with her permission!

Original song and lyrics are all Paula's; all the weirdness and added silly gunk throughout is France-wah's fault... (sorry?)

Paula's original acoustic version can be found here: https://soundcloud.com/themetaphorsenthusiast20/half-love

Thank you so much for letting me play with your beautiful music, Paula!  :D

********************************************

Half-Love (a re-imagination)

We're only as real as we pretend to be.

********************************************************
LYRICS
As far as the eye is willing to see
We're only as real as we pretend to be
Flashing instance impressions, this 
thumb-driven face-full-flag faux-tag-graphy

And we are all fonts, adjustable make-believers
Twitter-tattered hearts, some times grinners null sum voracious grievers
at the raindrop of our busker-hats, we play beggar deceivers
Self-sourced friction fiction with nothing apps 
our touchscreen sleeves

Yet can anyone prove this read swell
flows from you or me?


***


As long as the die is cast into the sea
We'll never quite know what it means to be free
Dashed against dawn-veiled depressions, this 
temper-contriving molded slag sim-apathy

Hollow soul haunts, acclimatized fake-receivers
Poise in piecemeal parts, patch-work sinners poured into part-time believers
Hungry for pigslop, infinite bucket-scat, we pray 
to better sooth-relievers
Self-service selection addiction, bed-whetted appetite, 
high-res cliffside reprieve

Distilled, I ask, can anyone prove this read swell
flows from you or me?

***

We're only as real
We're only as real as we pretend to be
We're only as real
We're only as real as the eye is willing to see

We're only an eye to pretend the willing from reel to real as you or me
We're only swelling this red flow from you or i pretending to see

we're only as real
we're only as real


***


So where do we go just so we can be?
Can divergence of flesh and flash converge into a single history
Deliberated Diversion, meld-weld infinite us-es 
into congress of congruity

'Cause we all have wants, inscrutable deep-seed behaviours
Unlocked Merry-go karts, boosting primal power-up fueling our hearts' be-labours
Disparate need to survive from screeching Fast 
to basic Maslow's failures, 
Or maybe pixels aren’t the problem and just like pigment, 
flaw's never been about too many flavours

...

Belief-Make

Worst poet wanna-being worster singsong-person. 

Lost to learning. Living the attempt.

Francois Cormier

Pinned to spotlight

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