Bonjour à tous,
Voici ma deuxième Invention pour piano. 🎹
J’ai souhaité écrire en contrepoint dans un style baroque moderne.
J’interprète au piano « Invention 2 »
Composition écrite en juillet, enregistrée le 27 juillet 2023
Bonne écoute. Image par Diego Ortiz de Pixabay
https://youtu.be/KfI6j5KrpN0

Invention 2 – Piano Baroque moderne Original

We never had a chance
We never had a clue
Couldn't tell my [whatever you want here]
From what I was to you
I'm always counting backward
To 197-Eleven

It's always sunset in the parking lot
In 197-Eleven

There's something going down
While I'm just sweeping up
Trading baseball cards
For beer in coffee cups
I close my eyes and there we are
in 197-Eleven

Back behind the garbage bins
Moths are beating out their brains
Where I saw you kissing him
And now nothing else remains
Thank God I can't return
To 197-Eleven

I'm always counting backward
To 197-Eleven

I'm always counting backward
To 197-Eleven

credits
from Dank Carnival, track released May 2, 2025
Written and performed: Marc Laidlaw

Drums, bass, guitar, piano, synths: Ryan Pollie
KORG Minilogue: Marc Laidlaw

Produced by Ryan Pollie
Mixed by Brian Rosemeyer
Mastered by Rob Dobson

Cover by Woodrow White

197-Eleven

Does it weigh you down?
Is it your albatross?
Can’t you stand any straighter?
Can’t you speak about your loss.

I see you smile in your sleep
When you got nothing to smile about
I see you smile in your sleep
What’s that about?

Did it break your heart?
Is that your epitaph?
Can you sink any lower
When even graves appear to laugh?

I see you smile in your sleep
When you got nothing to smile about
I see you smile in your sleep
What’s that about?

A cautious grin you hold within
you can’t admit you’ve hidden from yourself
A ray of hope, a fraying rope,
as hand by hand you climb up from the well
I know you’ve been in hell, my friend

Do you still play the game
When it’s all yours to lose?
Would you choose any different
If you ever got to choose?

I see you smile in your sleep
When you got nothing to smile about
I see you smile in your sleep
What’s that about?

credits
from Dank Carnival, releases October 1, 2025
Written and performed by Marc Laidlaw
Cello and guitar: Ben Absent
Accordion and synthesizer: Troy Dillinger
Drums: Ryan Pollie
Violin, bass, and backing vocals: Brooke Tannehill
Guitar: Marc Laidlaw

Produced by Ryan Pollie
Mixed by Brian Rosemeyer
Mastered by Rob Dobson

Cover by Woodrow White

Smile In Your Sleep

I open up my suitcase and your scent fills the room
I catch myself in the mirror and I appear to glow
I wonder if they wonder what's gotten into me
Does it show?

I don't think this is in danger of fading,
Should I go,
But how would I know?

Unprepared for passion I plunge into space
Till I plant in the earth at your feet
And looking up your infinitely long legs
I see your eyes smiling down on me from among the stars
The furthest heavens in your hair
And I see everything between here and there

credits
from Dank Carnival, releases October 1, 2025
Written and performed by Marc Laidlaw
Cello: Ben Absent
Bass, Juno-60, piano: Ryan Pollie
Sampler: Marc Laidlaw

Produced by Ryan Pollie
Mixed by Brian Rosemeyer
Mastered by Rob Dobson

Cover by Woodrow White

Infinitely Long Legs

To love her was like falling from her tree.
We’re in cahoots, she whispered owlishly.
Her name was Ava Egg
And she showed a feathered leg
She flew me to her nest
You can’t imagine all the rest

Animal vegetable mineral, my girl
Animal vegetable mineral, my girl
Animal vegetable mineral, my girl
My girl my girl my girl my girl

She was just a seedling, as was I
The way she tossed her petals made me cry
Her name was Daisy Bean
And I don’t mean to be obscene
But there’s a force that through the green fuse
Drives a flower to be a queen

Animal vegetable mineral, my girl
Animal vegetable mineral, my girl
Animal vegetable mineral, my girl
My girl my girl my girl my girl

You’ll never get a fix on her identity
She’ll never be the thing you think she ought to be
But if you win her love she will unveil what’s been concealed
You’ll find a million facets in yourself where she’s revealed.

I worked the mines but I was not a minor
I’d never seen deposits any finer
Her name was Gemma Ore
And she said what I was for
Was to cart away what wasn’t her
And never hope for more

Animal vegetable mineral, my girl
Animal vegetable mineral, my girl
Animal vegetable mineral, my girl
My girl my girl my girl my girl

credits
from Dank Carnival, releases October 1, 2025
Written and performed by Marc Laidlaw
Cello, guitar, Juno-60: Ben Absent
Accordion and piano: Troy Dillinger
Bass and drums: Leo Dolan
Violin and backing vocals: Brooke Tannehill
Electronic drums, piano: Marc Laidlaw

Produced by Ryan Pollie
Mixed by Brian Rosemeyer
Mastered by Rob Dobson

Cover by Woodrow White

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, My Girl

We inhabit indeterminate dimensions
So don’t let me pin you down
You can be as vague as you need to be
In the grey zone at the edge of town

Just say yes...or maybe no

Are we soul mates on this astral plane
That seems more like a jet without a pilot?
Our boundaries blur, our fates are entangled
in shades of ultraviolet

Just say yes...or maybe no

I heard there’s a color nobody can see
Without lasers in a hyperfocused dose
I sense that color looking back at me
When you lean in real close

Just say yes...or maybe no

credits
from Dank Carnival, releases October 1, 2025
Written and performed by Marc Laidlaw
Cello and bass: Ben Absent
Accordion: Troy Dillinger
Drums, bass, samples: Ryan Pollie
Violin and backing vocals: Brooke Tannehill
Sequencer/sampler: Marc Laidlaw

Produced by Ryan Pollie
Mixed by Brian Rosemeyer
Mastered by Rob Dobson

Cover by Woodrow White

Just Say Yes Or Maybe No

A man was being followed
He grinned from ear to ear
From one step to another
He appeared to disappear

We never saw his photograph
We never knew his name
We only heard his story
And we thought let’s do the same

C’mon, let’s disappear
C’mon, let’s disappear
We’ll gladly take you with us
Just as long as we are here

C’mon, let’s disappear
C’mon, let’s disappear
Why wait when every minute
More and more of us are here
 
The tethers are invisible
They keep you feeling tense
Let’s test the legal limits
Of your voluntary fence

There’s nothing new in heaven
There’s nothing new on earth
Except new ways of cashing in
On what a life is worth

They fill you where you should be hollow
They’ve packaged feeling sad
They have an app for appetites
You never knew you had

They think your heart has hardened
They know you’re often bored
You tend a paywalled garden
For imaginary lords

C’mon, let’s disappear
C’mon, let’s disappear
And when you find us finally
You’ll never know we’re here

C’mon, let’s disappear
C’mon, let’s disappear
Instead of feeling happy
Why not feel a little weird?

You wanted to be noticed
You wanted to be seen
And now you hold the fascination
Of a vast machine

We see you turn transparent
We see you turning clear
We see you as you really are
Just as you disappear

A man was being followed
Or maybe not a man
They call you what they want to
When you opt out of the plan

You’ll hear what you’ve been missing
You’ll feel much less alone
You’ll find a soul-shaped object
Where you used to have a phone

C’mon, let’s disappear
C’mon, let’s disappear.
We’re playing in the shadows
Where a new light has appeared

C’mon, let’s disappear
C’mon, let’s disappear
C'mon, let's disappear
C'mon, let's disappear

credits
from Dank Carnival, track released April 5, 2025
Written and performed by Marc Laidlaw
Cello and bass: Ben Absent
Accordion and piano: Troy Dillinger
Drums and percussion: Ryan Pollie
Violin and backing vocals: Brooke Tannehill
Meow: Stevie

Produced by Ryan Pollie
Mixed by Brian Rosemeyer
Mastered by Rob Dobson

Cover by Woodrow White

197-Eleven

Marc Laidlaw

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