This is absolutely phenomenal. I am dreaming about just listening to the instrumental without lyrics on this part over and over again, is there an instrumental version of this somewhere? 

It's been a little while, but I'm back with a slow burner that encapsulates a very Canadian (I'm from Vancouver), but relatable, combination of civility and resentment that develops when we let our hidden anger towards others silently smolder.

Stream/Download 'Sticks': https://onplanets.fanlink.to/sticks

@onplanets
Spotify - bit.ly/SpotOnPlanets
instagram.com/onplanets
facebook.com/weareallonplanets
twitter.com/onplanets

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Early in 2019 on vacation in Hawaii, my dad and I were chatting over morning coffee about what each of us had been working on — he freshly retired from teaching creative writing, and I recently returned to the On Planets project after about a year in hiatus. I mentioned casually that if he wrote any poems that could be translated into a song, we might try and put a track together. A couple months later he followed up with a piece called Sticks, which really resonated with me, and I immediately knew how the song should sound. After a few iterations, working out some details together and adding a refrain, I felt the track adequately captured the smoldering feeling of the poem.

This all was a stark contrast to my own songwriting process, which is an extremely gradual percolation of abstract thoughts driven by the deliberate assembly of fragmented lines written on scraps of paper and untitled notes on my phone; a crude and convoluted kind of simultaneous construction/deconstruction process that spans months, sometimes years. In this project, I felt somewhat like a translator, making an interpretive rendering of the work of the foremost creative sage in my life. I'm humbled to have the opportunity to collaborate with such a master as he, and humbled that when I read his writing it feels familiar—as if it might have come from my own pen, but infinitely more refined, wise, and impactful.

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Lyrics:

You throw stones
I put up sticks
the sound we make
is a thunder
when wind wails up
a push through each room
door blows open
letters get tangled
from A onto Z
we put them together
so hard to read

In a constant come-around
Believe me, I should know by now
Remind me how this goes
Broken bones, broken bones
Acquiescent to the tone
Believe me, I should know, I should know
But show me how this goes
Broken bones, broken bones

You carry sticks
I pile up stones
the space between us
sounds like distance
a word so simple to spell
the sentence that we build
is a thunder

---

Sticks

Stream / Download

On Planets - Sticks

"SABOTAGE!" is out now

Stream/Download: https://onplanets.lsnto.me/sabotage

Get in touch :) heyOP@onplanets.ca

Management/Production Enquiries: xYBx@degrade.LA

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