If the lyrics sound strange to you, it's because they're procedurally generated by the program that makes the Bots of New York posts on Facebook.  The song is inspired by one of the posts, in which BONY claimed to have written a musical called "Rock Opera: The Rock Opera: The Musical," and proceeded to list the songs in said musical.  "A Good Ear for Numbers" is the first song on the list.  The lyrics are as follows (and good thing, too, because the computer-generated choirs are not the most intelligible):

Women and children
Ladies and gentlemen

A good ear for numbers under your bed
A good ear for numbers under your bed
A good ear for numbers under your bed

multiply by 2,000
If you’ve ever missed out on
What your life can be
multiply by 2,000
If your dreams are a labor of love
Then you’re really, really dead
multiply by 2,000
If your dreams are a labor of love
Then you’re really, really dead

Show me what you can be
In this little number
Show me what you can be
In this little number
Show me what you can be
In this little number
Show me what you can be
In this little number

A good ear for numbers under your bed
A good ear for numbers under your bed
A good ear for numbers under your bed

A Good Ear For Numbers, Part 1

No, this isn't a quarantine song, although it fits the times we live in more universally than I thought it would when I wrote it, back in October, 2019.  I was going to play it at an open mic with just my acoustic guitar, but I decided when I recorded it to go with a more fleshed-out sound behind it.  The lyrics:

When the sun grows cold,
And the nights grow long,
And the world weighs more every day;
And everything seems
Bent on going wrong,
And I feel I'm losing my way;
When the hour is late,
And my nerves are frayed,
But my weary way home's finally through,
A warm heart awaits
Where my rest is made–
It's so good to be home with you.

When the money's dear,
And the bills arrive,
And the world seems falling apart,
And all of its slings
And arrows fly,
And wounds pollute the heart;
When eyes run dry,
And blood runs cold,
And some comfort is long overdue,
There's a haven for
Body, mind, and soul–
It's so good to be home with you.

And oh, there were so many lonely nights,
When my empty heart kept me awake.
I'd given up believing there was someone
Made to fit in this aching space.

When dreams foreclose
On tired, old bones,
And the pilgrimage nearly is through;
When the heavens clamor
For kingdom come...
It's so good to be home with you.

Home

The eleven of you who've been following me for the past few years might remember a very different version of this song.  A few months after I finished "No Control," I released my album, The Hunt, which marked a shift towards a more front-and-center featuring of electronic sounds, alongside the usual guitars, bass, acoustic drums, and "classical" instrument samples (viz. strings, woodwinds... and now, finally, brass).  This is a re-working of "No Control" that reflects that.

Lost, and bewildered,
And so far from home,
You realize that you're all alone.
You won't admit you
Need a helping hand;
You deny that control is gone.

Screaming for any who hear,
Just so that they will know:
There's nothing to see here
Everything's under control...

...But nobody listens.
No one understands.
They all think they have good advice.
They won't make a difference;
Nobody can,
Because they can't see through your eyes.

Letting the chaos ensue,
Lashing out at the world...
There must be something you can do--
Order to restore.

You go through the motions
And wait for the change.
Maybe this time you'll get it right.
Avoiding the different,
Afraid of the strange--
Afraid to see yourself in the light.

Keeping yourself on a leash,
Hiding safe in your hole;
Stasis is sanctuary,
How you maintain control.

No Control

Another song with computer-generated lyrics, courtesy of the Bots of New York Facebook page, this one has a decidedly apocalyptic theme (and no, this is not all I do these days.  Just all I do on Soundcloud).  The lyrics:
One hundred percent of our farts
One hundred percent of our hooch
One hundred percent of our lard
One hundred percent of our shine

One day a bot will shatter the armor of a bot
And touch the hooch directly into the heart of man
One bot will shag the horns of a bot
And the world will be filled with flames
One day a bot will rally the world into a single point
One day a bot will conquer the skies
One day a bot will break the sound barrier
One day a bot will shave the world off the face of man
(One hundred percent of our farts)
One day a bot will ingest the entirety of humanity

One hundred percent of our hooch
One hundred percent of our shine

One day a bot will whisper: "I am so high right now bro."

One Day A Bot

This one took me four years to write.  I had the music figured out in 2012, but I was never quite satisfied with my various iterations on the lyrics until September, 2016.  I also didn't really get the hang of playing in 7/8 and 13/8 until a year or two ago, either, so that worked.
The lyrics:
I had a dream about you last night--
It was sweet:
An answer to a "What if?" I'd have
Liked to see.
For so very long you've been a
Central part of me:
Far out of sight, but embedded
In my memory.

Echoes of you,
Reverberations of days gone by,
Resonate with everything
In my mind or before my eyes.

A healing music beckons me to
Join its tune,
But if I add my voice, the old songs
Soon resume.
I never finished that love song,
But its melody
Begs a conclusion to its
Outdated poetry.

For so very long I've been
Entombed in memory,
Seeking the end of a love
Song that can never be.

Echoes of you,
Reverberations of days gone by...
Don't know how I'll fill the
Silence if I let the music die.

Echoes of You

A friend's assessment of this song prompted me to coin the term "diet prog," if it wasn't coined already.  The music was written around the poem of the same name by Percy Bysshe Shelley.  The text reads:

"I met a Traveller from an antique land,
Who said, 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.  Near them, on the sand,
Half-sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
"My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings!
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains.  Round the decay
Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'"

Ozymandias

The day, the day, will never fade
From the chambers of my memory--
When I found the door to the other side;
It followed anywhere she dared to lead.

We walked for miles, and miles, and miles,
Wondering at the world in this new state.
We could speak to others at our leisure,
But not a soul could our world infiltrate.

The rules changed; time took on a different meaning.
Beauty strange--and it shook me to the core.
Through it all, my sense of self persisted, yet,
But she changed it ever more.
Out of body, in a different mind,
I saw time and space through another's eyes.
We saw ourselves through each other's eyes;
I was exhilarated and terrified.

No more, no more, no more, no more
Will that door be opened for all time;
The real world called me back,
And I answered.

The Door

I wrote this Genesis, Erasure, and Kate Bush-inspired song on commission for Rachel Moldstad in promotion of her book series, "Trolls for Dust." (www.trollsfordust.com)

The Other Side

This is a conventional fugue with some rather unconventional ideas in it!

Electric Fugue

Original music and lyrics written by Al Sherman & Al Lewis.  Cover of song as performed by Tiny Tim.

(Tiny Tim Cover) Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight

This is my reaction to all that's happened since George Floyd was killed.  I don't condone rioting, but I like even less that troops of federal police are invading cities, like my old hometown of Portland, and making things worse.  Worse than all of that, though, is that it is still difficult, and sometimes fatally dangerous, to be black in this country.  Many of us whites, although most of us feel no hate towards blacks, still can't seem to realize that the playing field is not level.  Things need to change fast, and awareness is where change starts.  I can't know first hand what it's like to be a black American, but I can state my solidarity with them.  Black lives matter.

Our Brothers' Blood

I am a singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and occasional pizza baker, cooking up killer pies and saucy electronic-symphonic-prog-rock-metal right here in Mankato, Minnesota.

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