An ode to opposites, and a different way to look at some of the issues that are tearing things apart.  This project is still incomplete.  I estimate it to be about 17-20 tracks when finished.

Opposing Forces

Another accidental decent new song that fits nicely in the "Opposing Forces" project.  I wrote the lyrics last week, recorded the music last Wednesday, and the vocals today.

This song is about the good people who dismiss themselves when they see something horrible happening to another person.

Lyrics:

Little Gage is in the back of the bus again
The safe seats were all taken.
They spit and mock and slap and they pull his hair.
Even after he starts shaking.

The others lock their eyes on the road ahead.
And ensure that he’s forsaken.
The driver never looks back from the road.
Not for peace, life, or creation.

Chorus:

They’re all trying not to notice.
They don’t want to know this.
“Thank God, this is not me but someone else!”

Bella’s broken down in the locker room
With mean girls all around her.
They’ve cut up all her nice new cool school clothes
That her mother worked so hard for.

The other girls avert their eyes and leave
And do not offer comfort.
When asked later they say they know nothing.
Not sure they even saw her.

Chorus:

They made sure not to notice.
They do not need to know this.
“Thank God, that was not me but someone else!”

Devon has spent six months on the deep blue sea.
He really missed his family.
He drove all night and passed through three more states.
Not caring how he’s driving.

Blue lights appear behind him on the road.
And calmly, he pulls over.
The cops say he’s been drinking all night long.
And pull him from his Rover.

Chorus:
They begin to beat him.
And no one stops to help him.
“Thank God, that isn’t me but someone else!”

Bridge:
Cowardice is violence, too.
How long until they come for you?
What have you gained observing rules?
The enforcers are clearly evil.

Chorus:
You think that you can hold out.
And they won’t call your own out.
Dear God, please save these people from themselves!

Two kids peeking through the upstairs back window
As Nazis march the Jews out.
They force them all to stop and take off their clothes
Then they heard them to a dug out.

They make them face away from the men with guns.
And then they blow their brains out.
The grown-ups in the house all hear the cries.
They pretend that it is all well.

Chorus:
They refuse to notice.
They don’t want to know this.
“Thank God, this isn’t us but someone else!”

You think that you can hold out.
And they won’t call your own out.
Good God, please save your children from themselves.

Craven

This is a new song.  We're already up to version 2:  Did some mastering cleaned up some of the audio, and fixed some of the vocals.  I like the story I found in this one.  As for the music, this is what would happen if Metallica made sweet musical love with The Beatles.  Version 3: toned down the overpowering distort guitars and cleaned a few things up.  Brought out the vocals in the verses.  Pulled the flute and clarinet parts back. (wanted those parts to be quiet).

Lyrics:

If you want to save someone from something,
I just wanted to save someone from something.
If you want to save someone from something,
Save them from yourself.

I was a sickly boy.
From ages two through eight, locked down inside my room.
I didn't have a friend.
All I ever did was sit and stare at my TV.

Binged Andy Griffith Shows.
And early Batman made in the 1960s.
That's how I learned the world
And picked my place within it like my father thought I should.

Learned the three types of men.
The heroes and the villains and the victims of their war.
I wanted to be Batman.
Though it's not so simple, I decided to do it.

Chrous:
I didn't mean it.
This is not who I am.
Please, please just listen to me.
I made a mistake.

I grew up big and strong.
I played a lot of sports, and I learned how to fight them off.
I learned to shoot a gun
nailing moving targets like the world was standing still.

Then I put on a badge
And went into the world to fight the monsters and their ilk.
Stare in the dark too long,
It worms its way inside you.  You become what you find ill.

I cannot meet a man
without looking for all the bad things that he has inside.
Somewhere along the way,
The line between the good and bad became very muddy.

Chorus.

Just a short traffic stop.
He had a broken tail light and I stopped to let him know.
Told me he had a gun
nestled in the console by his registration.

Said he should watch his hands.
"Don't go for that console or this stop could turn real bad."
Said that he had to show me
Reaching for the console, so I did what I had to.

Chorus

Outtro:
If you want to save someone from something. . . .
I just wanted to save someone from something.
If you want to save someone from something,
Save them from yourself.

Blue Tragedy

This is a brand new song.  I've had the idea for a minute, but I found a concept I liked this past weekend.  This one may change a bit.  This is definitely the crux of the "Opposing Forces" idea, and the other end of the title "Blue Tragedy."  As for the style, it's a mixture of a lot of sixties and seventies styles of music.  Let me know what you think as this one is a little experimental.  Version 2: Balanced some stuff.  Reworked some of the vocals.  I noticed missed notes and some areas that were slightly off tempo, and I fixed a lot of that.  Version 3: Cymbal crashes were distorting the sound.  Pulled that back -- a lot.  Brought out the chorus Crunch guitar a little more.  Made some more room.

Lyrics:

Intro:
The devil's glee.
The angels weep.
Great Father looks down.
His bearing screams:

"These are my children.  They're not untermenschen!
"No!
"They were never meant to be controlled."

Little boy with mocha skin and eyes full of dawn.
When he grows up he wants to change the whole world.
He declares in blue crayon.

He grew and he grew until he rose above the crowd.
A smile that lit the sky and brought the walls down.
Ne'er wore a frown.

As he was driving back home from a small town,
got shot in a traffic stop for having a gun.
Court date disallowed.

"These are my children.  They're not untermenschen!
"No!
"And my progeny won't let it go!"

In an attic lives a scared, little girl
Inside she hides from all the hate in the world.
Never coming unfurled.

Her journal spins a brilliant quilt full of whorl.
When she grows up, she wants to show the whole world.
She presents with a twirl.

A pack of bastards ruined what might have been.
Off to camps with her whole family and friends.
Never made amends.

"These are my children; they're not untermenschen.
"No!
"And your hatred will swallow you whole."

Hispanic man who lost his life's sweet amor.
Raising kids where you can die if you're poor.
He decides he wants more.

They wear out their shoes searching far heretofore.
To the states where they might thrive forevermore.
Though despised and abhorred.

Crossing the border, they are seen by the boars.
The father runs but he is shot in the gourd.
And the kids beaten sore.

"This was our father.  He wasn't subhuman!
"No!
"And our fury will dig you a hole!"

Great father looks down:

"These are my children; they're not untermenschen!
"No!
"I will return and my wrath you'll behold!"

Coda:
And the blood cries up from the ground:
"How long will you let it go?"
It's your blood too, didn't you know?
"How long will you let it go?
"How long will you let it go?"

Untermenschen

This is a new version of an old song.  Rather than make "The Martyr" eight minutes long, I decided to do the intro as the intro to the Opposing Forces project, and pick up the end of the song as the outro for the project.  This is a brand new part of the song.  Musically and lyrically I intended it to describe in a realistic and secular way the prayer at the Garden of Gethsemene, just before the arrest of the man commonly known as Jesus of Nazareth.  It was fun doing a musical story like this without writing a hymn.

From Gethsemane Part One:   (Opposing Forces Intro)

This is yet another brand new song.  It turned out to be a little more than I envisioned.  It's not filler.  In fact. . . .  Well, I like it anyway.  The style is a little different than some of the more recent stuff.  I would call this blues Rock.  My influence for this type of genre would be Blues Traveler, Counting Crows, Black Crowes . . . any number of others.  This is a first version, so I'm sure some of it may change later after I've listened to it a few thousand times.

Lyrics:

I’ll bet I know how I must look to you.                                          
I’ll bet I know how I must look to you.

                       
Hair exploding from my head
Like frayed copper wire.
Ragged Clothes bare of thread.
And ten years out of style.

Every time you step out your door
And look across the road,
I’m sitting on my porch swing here
And smoking like a stove.

I’ll bet I know how I must look to you.
I bet you haven’t thought how you must look to me.

I saw your son at the bus stop yesterday.
With a mean Frozen grin on his face.
		Kids in colorful winter coats
		All except for one.

		He wears a thin cloth jacket stained and frayed.
		His hair a tangled and oily disarray. 
		He said nothing to anyone.
		Stood in the rain and stared.

You might know him.  He lives just up the street.
In the house with the yard that’s gone to seed.
His mother left them two months ago
For better company.

Your boy smacked him across the face
He fell with a heavy thud.
Dumped the contents of his bag
And ground it in the mud.

This boy is me
Your son is just like you.

Ch:
Microcosm of humanity
On our little street, well
No one’s good but we’re not bad.
No one’s happy but some are sad.

All have eyes trained to the sky, and we’re screaming,  Ah!
“Please don’t hate me I’m not a saint.
“I’m just fumbling through my days.”
“Trying not to screw this up and failing.”

The little white house across the road
Sitting facing me.
An older lady once lived alone.
She was sixty-three.

Never saw any visitors there
Not even holidays.
About eleven years ago.
She up and passed away.

That brick house to the left just there
With Trump signs in the yard.
Lives a preacher who drives a truck.
His name is Bill Bernard.

He spends all his time on the road
His wife just sits at home
Many men come to run the train
The moment he is gone.

No one tells him
Hell, not even me.

Chorus 2


I’ll bet I know what you must think of me.
I’m not the fool you seem to think I am.
I’m not the fool you seem to think I am.

This is closer than I ever want to be.
Don’t give a damn what you must think of me.

Craven

Matt Cantrell