Music & Lyrics by Ren Michael

Home-cooked roses 
candlelight 
a valentining croon
within the night, 
darkness entombed 
dawn, the distant moon

I dream of you
in Canyonlands
south to Death Valley
Durango down 
through New Mexico 
as I set out on the road

Oh, epic tales,
smooth as wine
spin Herculean rhymes
vagabonds 
vaunting light 
haunting bookstores late at night

words they come, and 
words, they go
oh Isis of the Nile  
as I approach 
may I but dare
to frame the diamonds in your hair?
to frame the diamonds in your hair...

From Mammoth Caves 
deep in Kentucky 
down to New Orleans
down in the swamp
we shout and stomp
on the banks of the Mississippi 

when you stand before
the window wide, 
out upon the avenue
picture me babe, 
know I’ll be there.  
Know I’m a-coming home to you
Know I'm coming home to you 

One is One
And One is All
And two, the ace of spades
What makes three but
You and me?
As four explores the sea?

See, Infinity 
is in your eyes
a lifetime in just one night,
that jasmine lifts in Los Angeles, 
as death greets me with your kiss.

First light 
upon the rising morn
a nation being born
babe we’ll allow it through, 
created anew,
When I come home to you

When I come home to you 

When I come home to you

When I come home to you

When I Come Home To You

May mix is a nearly 2 hour journey through my favorite records at the moment.

Lose Control Mix 014 - Groovy House/Techno Vinyl Mix May 2023

Animation.Blues

Here’s some new music, coming to a speaker near you.

Golden Hour

bigfoot on a rainy day in june

May it haunt the house pleasantly. Your friend, RM

Ghosts In The Garden

Music and Lyrics by Ren Michael

As the trains they roll on by
Ignorant of that gleam in you eye
I thought I heard the whispering of the rain
I turn around and the same passerby, gray concrete remains

These tracks, these tunnels I might call home
Though somewhere I swear another light had shone
In a dream I remember visions so clear
In the steam, like a mist it blinks, yea briefly reappears.

I need you baby
Yea I long for you
I came for you, won't you meet me now.
There's a place for us and it's waiting beyond
The sun shall bring the morning but only you can bring me the dawn

Through these corridors I roam like a phantom found.
I'd become another stranger in smoke, in the crowd.
And though they all may come and go sometimes I swear I shall remain,
Until I see your train comin' my way.

What are you?  My dear, I cannot say.
Though I'd follow you at any time and in any way
And is that the general tune of your song,
As I stander here try to frame the nature of whose side your on?

Cause I need you baby
Yea I remember you
And you dance somewhere in these train station walls.
And though it's true that I can't see you at all
I stand so ready for you, each time darkness falls.


Stationhouse Blues (I Need You)

Ball and Chain

Goodbye Booze

About a year ago I lost my voice. I didn’t feel like doing much of anything, even playing my guitar. And then one day things seemed to change. It was a night where I thought to myself I don’t like who I’ve been lately, so I’m not going to be that guy anymore, with or without my voice.

I remembered who I used to be, and how good and natural it felt to be that person. I didn’t have the same body and probably bruised more easily than I used to, but I remembered who I was on that deeper level and how I saw the world. So I told myself I’d go back to being that person by staying true to it; and I knew it, and so I was. And it felt good.

It even felt simple, as I was quite suddenly able to look back on it.

I’m not out of the woods, but I likely never will be.

It’s the sort of uneasy truce that comes with honesty.

Eventually my voice started coming back. I still didn’t pick up the guitar for a while longer either, but it was alright. I had a feeling that I would play again when the time was right.

Now this is no philosophy I care to name, and I stay away from the -isms, which tend to limit critical thinking and creativity. In my experience, giving yourself a name for observing a set of principles is unnecessary as opposed to tending toward those principles in daily life, and then letting the rest speak for itself.

I do wonder whether the -isms continued popularity might suggest a deeper need among us to be a part of something other than the human race, which alone might be unsatisfying for many.

I believe in compassion as a core principle for any society.

Then I believe in a balance between intuition and empirical evidence.

What some might call common sense.

Although if we’ve decided common sense means different things to different people, then we might have to question whether common sense exists at all.

In the meantime this new album is called 12 Themes Approximately and the Funky Earth Sounds. Actually that might be reversed. But they both work.

I hope everyone is doing well and staying vigilant.

It’s a good time to start trusting each other.

Ren Michael

Jan 11 2026

New Rain

Music & Lyrics by Ren Michael

As I listen to your wisdom and all the things you hold dear
I hear the persistence of your resistance and your fears
As you call me daughter, as you call me son
You’d do well to remember, friend, I’m not the only one.

We’ve heard your words, we’ve heard your demands
Looked long into your heart as we sought to understand
Now I hear the bell toll, I feel a million hearts pound
Take a seat, please, dear man. Listen to me now

You sing of the good times. What times were those?
Long before my time, but I recognize the eyes of Jim Crow
Deny it all day and say I’m opening wounds
As you continue the tune, play ol’ Jim’s fool

You say there’ll always be poor folk beside the sick and unnamed
Shaped by a their refusal to play by the rules of the game
One day they'll rise and defy all your wars
And you'll be the one who lives by the gun, as they inherit the world.

Well I seek the dream, the creed taught to you and me
For all the huddled masses yearning to breathe free
A place to call home without fences and walls
For all the tired and poor, and justice for all.

You say life’s a struggle, an era’s bygone
We need some law and order, there’s just one side to be on
Go on’ grab your raincoat man, I think I hear the thunder roll
But as ever, friend, you know I’ll catch you at the end of the road

Lamplights of Zion

a man with a guitar
wearing a suit and putting out pictures

talking films
from a cafe, secluded

in the shadows
over rainsoaked
streets in Vienna

where a violin 
is heard up the way
‘cross the river,
black and still
as night reigns
in the early 21st century

a new
_primordial dawn
fast approaching

on the move, songs capture the raw. main influences include cinema, the natural world and many sounds of the city. The songs are never done as each recording is a snapshot of life in constant motion.

for fun he walks (with his dogs) road trips and catches old tv shows, baseball games and comic books. 

POEM pieced together 25 August, 2022_

The idea 
for this SoundCloud 
soundstage is 
that of an open workshop 
where listeners 
will be able to listen 
to sounds 
images 
and concepts 
being worked on (shopped) 
and some of them 
may be finished 
while others may not 
but they are being born 
continuously and 
they can make of it whatever 
they choose, but 
may it haunt their houses pleasantly 
for the idea of creativity 
to me is that nothing 
is ever really done
but only constantly being made  
for the greatest thing about music 
is that it can’t be pinned down and is open 
to greater interpretation than the other forms 
and even lyrics written 
by the greatest lyricist 
can be altered and moved around 
to give it a more varied dynamic 

but anyway in talking about the occasional 
blood on the tracks 
I am getting slightly off track 

so what I really mean to say friends 
and newcomers alike 
is welcome 
we’ve got popcorn 
sandwiches 
beer, red wine 
and ice-cold water 
salud.

-

Your friend,
Ren Michael

New Rain

Ren Michael

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