Let's Go Back To The Forest

Artwork by @beautyspot.art
Mixed amd Mastered by @bradbeats

Sunset Ride

Fruits of my Labor day weekend 9/4/2023
Original written by: Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck, William Barry of REM off the Murmur Album 1983 IRS Label, now 2012 Universal Music Enterprises, a UMG subsidiary

09042023

Perfect Circle (instrumental cover) REM

This is a cover of an Arrows of the Sun. All words and composition are Arrows of The Sun. 

For this version of the song:

S. Drysdale : Vocals, Electric Guitar, Bass, Keyboards
A. Reed: Engineering and Programing

Keep On Running

As each November approaches I try to make my own little Remembrance-time tribute.  Seems more relevant as each year passes...

Following the huffing and puffing empire lunacy in the summer of 1914, the next four years would see 40 million casualties, half of them deaths and of those, half were civilian.  

40 million.

40 million tales of poignancy, pain, grief and human tragedy, through times that can often seem littered with coincidence, symmetries …. bookends and mirrors.

In the Military Cemetery of St Symphorien near Mons rests John Parr.  At only five foot three inches and several years under age he (amazingly) managed to enlist in 1912 - hoping to see the world, and get the advertised “two square meals” a day.  He was the first British Army casualty, killed in the battle of Mons aged just 17, his body left behind, fate unknown until much later in the conflict;  the army unable to answer his mother’s letters of enquiry about her “silent” son.

By pure coincidence, John lies just a few yards from the last British soldier to die in the great war.  George Ellison served for four long years including at the same first battle of Mons as John, and most of the famously grinding, attritional infantry battles of the conflict.  His working life bookended by military service, George had first enlisted in 1902, leaving the army in 1912, just as John joined, he became a coal miner, re-enlisting at the outbreak of war to dig mud not coal and fight from trenches he helped excavate.  George was killed just 90 minutes before the armistice took effect at 11:00 on the 11th day of the 11th month.  The futility of the conflict was cruelly illustrated by the fact that George’s war had started and ended at exactly the same place, Mons in Belgium.  They had literally gone nowhere.

As a postscript to progress since "the war to end all wars" the human race is currently reckoned to be engaged in 7 major wars, 15 significant ongoing conflicts and 21 “minor” conflicts (the latter defined as up to "only” 1000 deaths per year).  By way of another macabre bookend, the longest of these has been going on, unbelievably, since the year .... 1918.

As always, this simple ballad is offered as a live one mic one take effort - please excuse the fluffs and gaffes.
_______________________

Bookends and Mirrors

Sun turned cold ‘cross every sky in the summer of ‘14
The Good Lord shook his head, and he placed it in his hands
Braided declarations flying, whose like was never seen
Lunatics in feathers stockpiled lead, bagged their sand.
Slapstick Mephistopheles, unleashing of his flame
Spiral minds lobotomised in the waltz of the insane
Simple lives unknowing of the mud that would become
A mirror in the resting place of two Holy Mother’s sons.

Signed the line, five years young, fingers crossed behind his back
Chance to see the world, grab a future, two square meals.
At 17, John’s angels sung, first to fall in dawn’s attack
Abandoned and forgotten, deaf to all his ma’s appeals.
Never knew the miner, his bookend pal to be
Fighting down the line, many battles that he’d see
Full four years in trenches, George’s hell lived through them all
Cruelty was smiling wide at England’s last to fall.

In service time they travelled nowhere, nothing to achieve
Embracing 40 million weeping mothers left to grieve
The crime of puffing chest bravado beggared to believe
Hall of mirrors seeping others’ blood of the innocent naive.

Now John and George lie facing each to seek their mirrored peace
Raise my eyes and brim a tear for the lessons never learned
Pray God, don’t ever let them know man’s insanity but increased
The war to end all wars a mere sequel oft’ returned 
By comedies of leathered fools stuck on infinite repeat
Bemedalled and bejewelled, they prosecute their moral defeat
But here, on sallow turf twixt heroes, broken mirror in my broken hand
Met by my own broken eyes, I still fail to understand.
_________
Photo by Michael Yuan on Unsplash

Bookends and Mirrors

J-Stars of Hysteria

Black Madonna (Instrumental)

An experimental ambient industrial soundtrack.

Elements

Dashed

This is a song inspired by a wonderful poem of the same title that I came across on the web recently.  It's written by a guy named Christopher without further information (not me though).   I eventually took the liberty & converted it into a song.  I gave it a bit of a country feel and hope you would enjoy listening.  

[CREDITS]
Music / Vocals / Arrangements / Programming – Michael C. Lynn
Lyrics – Christopher 
Fiddle - Andy Leftwich @Band_in_a_Box
Guitar Solo & Fill-ins – Brent Mason @Band_in_a_Box

[LYRICS]
She looks into air, herself falling rain
Dripping coldness past, memories old pain.
Drops fall, the puddling her damp water-life.
Spiraling a mirror, self-lonely strife.

Clouds a-whorl, dark sky sheltering fair heart.
But how can she joy, while taking no part?
Covering cold soul, corona of defense.
Defying the stab of her fate's intents.

This is madness, she thinks in plaintive cry.
I'm here, on the cusp, of lay down and die.
What my destiny, but an empty-off dream?
A plaything with which gods and angels scheme.

Am I doomed then to live, time never-free?
Subsumed wholly 'neath life's scattered debris?
Is justice outside this torrential doubt?
Perhaps more than sorrow,  painful fall-out?

Instrumental break

Personal paradise, which I can own,
Evoking happiness, hither unknown?
She raises from streets of lonely no more.
Light slicing through darkness, hopes washed ashore.

Her withered gait now straightening with pride.
She glides like an angel 'cross future's tide.
Caressing the ground, sing the beat of her heart.
Into the sun seeking love's brand new start.

Into Every Life

Subterranean air flows and echoes can beautifully bend and distort sounds (and conversations). Riding the 'tube', 'underground', 'metro' or 'subway' systems is a fascination for some (myself included), for some a mystery and for some an onerous necessity.

Track: 3 track saxophone conversations / clarinet background

Image c/o Pinterest: graphic of London's Piccadilly Circus Undergound station tunnels (1989).

Underground Voices

Child of the Green Wood

New Album! Bandcamp!
★[Dual Katana] 
★[no ambient, no life]
Check it out!

J-Stars of Hysteria

Sanshu Seiso [Experimental Artist]

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