from TAKE 23 - The Gay, Unpolished, One-Take Album.
Original guitar track composed by Eddie Bristow Jr.
Audio taken from a camera video recording.

The final track in the album. A song about the stresses involved in living with a mental illness, and the fear of dying / losing a loved one.
Progress often seems nonexistent, but it's there.

"3 steps forward, one step back, going nowhere today...
please tread lightly, I pull myself down every step of the way."

Drawing by me (2019).

Take 23

Get Better - first ever run-through ft Eddie Bristow Jr - 2016

It's fat boy summer, my dudes.
(I wrote / recorded / edited together this song in like... 2 hours today. Parts of the melody sound vaguely familiar to me, so I hope that my brain didn't subconsciously body-snatch some pre-existing song's melody.)

"My rolls, they ripple with the waves
(you) can't tell my body how to behave..."

Polaroid taken by Hannah Corwin (2019).

FAT BOY SUMMER

AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION:

0. Sound means love. I lie asleep within the oceanic embrace of my mother's body. The only sounds I know are her heartbeat, and the voices of her and my father. I know love before I know air. I know sound before I know air.

1. Stumbling, bumbling, small. I lie beside my twin and learn to breathe.

2. I love to scream.

3. I learn to dream.

4. I feel the hands of depression upon my shoulders for the very first time. I capture my voice within the pink plastic walls of a sandbox pail, and release it into the night when I lie crying, asking my dad: What happens to us after we die?

5. School is a playground.

6. School is a prison

7. that I soon find freedom within

8. the stifling warmth of stage lights and

9. my voice being heard by others.

10. My voice is loud, gangly, clean. I start taking theater classes at a local conservatory and start to learn what standing in the back means. 

11. Since birth, my mom has been harmonizing to every song that I've ever heard on the radio. I believe that she has heard every song ever written. I listen.

12. The questions that I would ask my dad before bed since age four suddenly seep through the cracks, drown the lights, and take 'center floor'.

13. I learn what it means to want to be small. My classmates laugh as they push my walls inward, compacting and compressing me until my voice only has cracks to creep out of. I am too soft to say No.

14. Can I let others see me just long enough to let them know I exist? The stage beckons back to me - she is hungry. I am hungry. We shake hands. 

15. "Oh my God - shut up! This is why no one likes you!"

16. "But I'll pay you to do my art homework!"

17. My body is a concaved shell, housing a voice never heard outside of answering questions. I start taking voice classes at the conservatory - my teacher cannot figure out WHY my shoulders keep rising into my ears.
I do not tell him that my body is honed to protect me from sharp words.
I tell him that I will try harder.

18. I have never made it through an entire voice lesson without bursting into tears. Every correction writes "still not enough" across my forehead in invisible ink.

19. Seven hours of driving and I'm in Buffalo. I chose this theater program because of the energy, I say.
I've actually chosen this school because I am not required to audition.
I fail basic classes and almost get kicked out, but I learn that not every person outside of my family wants to hurt me. This will take me 3 years to fully believe.

20. I stay. I run away. I return. Run, rinse, repeat.
With no instruments on hand besides my own voice, I write.

21. I am trying. My professors are trying. I will NOT HEAL. Success is an abstract concept, but so is concentration once my first depression medications start to kick in. My (voice) professor encourages me to make an album - I laugh.
I wind up on a bridge and decide to live. But I'll have to start from scratch. In one week I lose every good advancement I have ever made.

22. I abandon the framework that has been laid.
I graduate, pack my bags, break some hearts, and go home.
I have been gifted a ukulele for my birthday, and have had some success writing songs. 
I suddenly see that I had been writing them all along.

23. I stand here before you with nothing but my voice, and my songs.
As I look at you all I realize that I am basking in the glow of being able to ask for help. I bask in the [begins to cry] ... warm oceanic embrace of believing (as best I can) that my music is worth this. That I am worth this. And you are worth this.
Sound means love.

Take 23: The Poem. (Release Party Speech)

Wrote this today after an unusually magical autumn walk. 
It's still rough, but I think I like this one! (Recorded outside.)
Photo Copyright 2018 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cinnamon & Cheap Plastic | a Halloween Song

I was three weeks into the most high-stakes acting job of my LIFE (and SURVIVING OFF OF THE PAY FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER) in NYC when quarantine closed all Broadway theaters. 
I don't know if my "big break" will ever come around again. 
I don't know what I'll do if it doesn't

So sometimes ya just gotta write a whole sappy song about how important theater is to you, how theater is a part of you, and how terribly you miss it.

LYRICS AND CHORDS:
I remember all the hours I spent underneath your light
warm at first, then burning into my skin and my face
a slow pain
like only the sun, or loneliness, can bring
I take refuge in the wings
lean against the curtained, big black, starless sky 
wish the glitter on her cheeks was yours, 
wish the sleek black shoes and crisp old suit 
walking away, could be on you
at least here maybe you can choose, how folks see you and breathe you in
maybe here, for once, you can win?

[CHORUS - fancy plucking]

(Am add9)                                           (C)   (Cmaj7)  (Cm)
you were the net I fell into when everybody else fell through
(Am add9)                                       (C)       (Cmaj7)    (Cm)
what little light they let me keep, I'd always share with you
(Em)          (Em w/o bottom fing.) (Cmaj7) (Cm)  (D)
I'd take the burning of your metal suns over the cold
(Em)                  (Em " )             (Cmaj7)   
life has kept few promises, but with you
(D without mid. finger)
for you
                    (G) or (Em)
I promise to grow old

I guess I didn't know what I had when I had it - isn't that how it always goes?
I'd never been so close. I'd never felt the metal suns grow up until they burnt out into plasma, 
felt notes wash over and out from my lungs like sand between my toes
That little girl on the stage ten years ago would have wept if he could see the man on stage
come into life, breath their voice into the room
It didn't feel too soon
when my voice was washing over airways, twice in a day,
when I was surrounded by friends wherever I lay.

I didn't imagine that after all the waiting, 
you wouldn't stay.

[CHORUS]

Love Letter to the Stage

something... very different lol
dysphoria and anxiety combined makes for some really, really bad days. and having to ask for help sucks.
LYRICS:
they won't cover my surgery, but please don't give me your money
this tangled aching in my chest won't stop, but stay away - 
you won't like what you see
I don't want to have my memory smudged by this body i'm in
but why should I win 
maybe I'm meant to drown, thrown in a dry river 
with nowhere to swim

(2X)
I can't
they won't
so don't
help me

what if I'm misgendered at my funeral? 
that's a terrible fear of mine
must be so nice to not think about that at night (must be nice)
take your words and tell them that I was a boy 
who likes flowers and tea and other soft things

I don't want to talk about this, but my ribcage isn't strong enough 
to hold in all the words, and when that happens I sing...

(2X)
maybe I can
but they won't
so maybe don't
help me

anxietyattack

TW: VOLUME JUMPS AT THE END OF SEVERAL VERSES.

being trans, poor, and depressed is rlly fun y'all.

LYRICS:
they say they won't cover my surgery, 
but please don't give me your money
this tangled aching in my chest won't stop, but stay away -
you won't like what you see
I don't want to have my memory smudged by this body I'm in,
but why should I win?
maybe I'm meant to drown, thrown in a dry river
with nowhere to swim.

(2X)
I can't
they won't
so don't
help me

what if I'm misgendered at my funeral?
that's a terrible fear of mine
must be so nice to not think about that at night (must be nice)
take your words and tell them that I was a boy
who likes flowers and tea and other soft things

I don't want to talk about this, but my ribcage isn't strong enough
to hold in all the words, and when that happens I sing...

(2X)
maybe I can
but they won't
so maybe don't
help me

5 - Can't Won't Don't (anxietyattack)

my messy, witchy room was giving me some of those retro "I-Spy" computer game vibes.

LYRICS:
look on the windowsill, what do you see?
I spy an old glass cup, full of dead-dry Rosemary
next to a pile of green post-it notes, hastily stacked
near a seashell full of little glass pebbles, and old acorn caps

[CHORUS:]
if you're looking for something that matters you might find it here,
amid the figurines and dried flowers whose purpose is unclear
the body surrounding it all may be chaotic like the sea,
but wherever there is water, there's a beach
a little land of peace
my treasures, staring back at me
(4X) my accidental altars


flickering faintly in front of closet doors
lives a battery-powered plastic jack-o-lantern,
bathing so softly in a gauzy gray plume
of incense smoke, whose dances fill up the room

that sits in a broken beige mug full of soil
where a failed crop of chamomile sleeps
all resting upon cheap wooden card table,
with minoxidil and a Mary Lambert CD

[CHORUS]

4 - Accidental Altars

(Back in February) I was three weeks into the most high-stakes acting job of my LIFE (and SURVIVING OFF OF THE PAY FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER) in NYC when quarantine closed all Broadway theaters.
So sometimes ya just gotta write a whole sappy song about how important theater is to you, how theater is a part of you, and how terribly you miss it.

LYRICS:
(spoken)
I remember all the hours I spent underneath your light
warm at first, then burning into my skin and my face
a slow pain
like only the sun, or loneliness, can bring
I take refuge in the wings
lean against the curtained, big black, starless sky
wish the glitter on her cheeks was yours,
wish the sleek black shoes and crisp old suit
walking away, could be on you
at least here maybe you can choose,
how folks see you and breathe you in
maybe here, for once, you can win?


[CHORUS] (sung)
you were the net I fell into when everybody else fell through
what little light they let me keep, I'd always share with you
I'd take the burning of your metal suns over the cold
life has kept few promises, but with you...
for you, I promise to grow old

(spoken)
I guess I didn't know what I had when I had it -
isn't that how it always goes?
I'd never been so close. I'd never felt the metal suns grow up
until they burnt out into plasma,
felt notes wash over and out from my lungs like sand between my toes
That little girl on the stage ten years ago would have wept
if he could see the man on stage
come into life, breath their voice into the room
It didn't feel too soon
when my voice was washing over airways, twice in a day,
when I was surrounded by friends wherever I lay.

I didn't imagine that after all the waiting,
you wouldn't stay.

[CHORUS] (sung)

3 - Love Letter To The Stage

A song about autumn in quarantine, and how I always try (and sometimes succeed in) re-creating the careless, spooky Halloween energy from my youth.

LYRICS:
[SOUND EFFECTS: A MATCH IS LIT, A CHEESEY MONSTER CACKLE IS HEARD, AND THE CRACKLING OF A BONFIRE SOUNDS IN THE BACKGROUND FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE SONG]

I'm trying really hard to find the softness hidden in hard times
pickin' out a melody while sipping coffee, stitchin' up the rhymes
knitting up the sweater that I started (and then set aside) last year
pressing all the buttons in the Halloween departments,
letting tinny cackles drown out all the fear
[CHEESEY SPOOKY CACKLE SOUND EFFECT]

(chorus:)
we might not get to trick-or-treat,
but there's still sunset walks and pies to eat!
take my hand, we'll stay aloft
there's still hope for being autumn-soft!

BoO0Ooo...BoO0Ooo...BoO0Ooo...
[CREAKING DOOR SOUND EFFECT]

Candy corn is filling up the shelves of every shop in my small town
sprinkle cinnamon into my coffee, galaxies of gold and brown
blankets on the floor for scary movies,
warm the shivers down your spine
[CHEESEY SPOOKY CACKLE / "I KNOW WHO YOU ARE" GHOULISH VOICE SOUND EFFECT]

wishing I could rewind time...
wishing I could spare a dime...
hoping that a better autumn waits for us,
beyond this ever-mounting climb...
but feeling that we might still end up fine...

(chorus:)
we might not get to trick-or-treat,
but there's still sunset walks and pies to eat!
take my hand, we'll stay aloft
there's still hope for being autumn-soft!

BoO0Ooo...BoO0Ooo...BoO0Ooo...

[THE CRACKLE OF THE MATCH'S FIRE, THEN THE SOFT SOUND OF THE MATCH BEING BLOWN OUT]

2 - Autumn Soft

A song about antisemitism.

LYRICS:
what is it about me that hurts you?
why do you burn to say things you know aren't true?
I ask as though I don't already know, I wish I didn't have to
what is it about me that scares you?

(plucking interlude - Gm, C, Gm, C)

was it the vengeful cackles of the witches you burned us as?
is it the way that we keep small fires in our houses, anyway?
was it the sound that coins made when they ricocheted off my body during play-dates?
is it the whispered prayers of my grand-someones that somehow still remain?

(plucking interlude - Gm, C, Gm, C)

Am I too much? Are we too loud?
is it the curls that crown my head?
is it the crackle of oil, is it the warmth of a candle,
or the sweetness of honey, or the smell of challah bread?
or the rumbling "H"s that float from our throats, as our mothers sing to us in bed?
I can ask all day, but you'd still want me dead.

(plucking interlude - Gm, C, Gm, C)

what is it about me that hurts you?
(I don't give a damn)
why do you burn to say things you know aren't true?
(those aren't what I am)
I ask as though I don't already know, I wish I didn't have to
what is it about me that touches you?

1 - What Is It About Me

🎃 He/They 🎃
"messy", a new quarantine EP, is now available on Soundcloud and Bandcamp! 
EP art by the incredible Dylan Yoshiharu <3
[profile cover and profile pic taken by Hannah C.]

Salem

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