[ Update: find a new revised mix and remastered version for 2023 on Bandcamp: https://key13.bandcamp.com/album/city-lights ]

This uses a synthetic vocalist - "Lucy" by Emvoice.

Week 12 of r/songaweek: theme is Rain.

Lyrics:

City lights in the rain

A stray reflection
Sparks a memory
The rain went on and on for days

Red light at the crossroads
City skyline in the office window
The past is staring back at me

One thing I remember
City lights in the rain

Like a forest full of fireflies
Frozen in lines
Too tired, so late
Gotta get out this time

The traffic light's green
It's time to go
Leaving for the countryside and sunshine coast

Goodbye old life
Goodbye old life
Don't look back, never going back.

City lights in the rain

City Lights

Get this on Bandcamp

City Lights [feat. Emvoice Lucy]

Week 14 for the Song-a-Week Challenge.
Theme: Spoken Word

This week is something very different from what I normally do.  Don't know why but I really wanted to get into some electronic elements; originally it was going to be a mesh of acoustic and electronic but that just wasn't working out.  Not my usual sound at all, but the theme supported it well.

Lyrics:
The forest greets me with chirps and hums
I feel obliged to listen to its rhythms
Close my eyes and I'm back in the server room

Cords snaking their way across the floor
I'm not entirely sure where I am anymore
The vines back there were better bundled than this

(Chorus)
I, I'm looking for an answer
That I can't find
Never a next time
And I, I'm searching for a feeling
But I've grown blind
Never a next time

The knobs here cannot be dialed
The weather cannot be carefully regulated
Maintenance is at the mercy of whatever state I am in

Grass crunched below my heavy feet
Shattering bulbs and crushing circuits
More fuel to the growing fire of a life that hardly fits

(Chorus)

*If you enjoyed this at all feel free to check out my Bandcamp, link in my profile.*

Never Next Time

Seventeen

Nineteen

Driver

written for r/songaweek 2022 - week 30 (Theme: i-VII-VI-V)

Ivory Keys


Born into nothing, you had a hunger
And something to prove to the people who looked down at you.
Shocking and bolder than a chip on your shoulder,
You harbored resentments, and reckonings overdue.

Setting the guns up, and only when you were sure 
You shot a cannonball across their bow.
But you’re out for blood, and the fear’s not enough -
The debt will be paid by a thousand cuts

And as the plan is laid,
Their bed is made
but yours is too

The weight of your anger is sinking you
Will you let it pull you down?
You are caught in the knots of the pain you have wrought
Give it up or you will drown

You crafted your future from the wrecks of your enemies
And you tried to make reveries from the music you wrote.
But the ivory keys of that resonant instrument 
tell stories of suffering under every cursed note 

And the plan was laid,
Their bed was made
But yours is too

The weight of your actions is sinking you
And it keeps pulling you down.
You are caught in the knots of the pain you have wrought
And it’s coming to take you now

Ivory Keys

written for r/songaweek 2022 - week 31 (Theme: Repetition)

The Menacing Easy

Spiraling down
Into the zombie rhythm
I'm too comfortable now

The menacing easy
A quicksand couch
And while I was sleeping
I waived all my doubts

My motor runs for no one
ballooning intermission
I choose to chase my tail
It grows in repose

I make the same mistakes
I do it every time
An elliptical orbit
but if I ignore it, I feel sublime

Do I feel sublime?

It doesn't sit right
I wake up from the dream
to a knock in the night

I'm a broken fence with a hole for a heart
to the other side

I'm gonna push the walls back
stretch out my mind
I'm gonna clear the rat traps

After I rest my eyes

The Menacing Easy

written for r/songaweek 2022 - week 33 (Theme: Magic)

Loosely based on the Pied Piper of Hamelin - scratch vocals.
----------
Hamelin, ME

Bolt down the doors, close the blinds
and hide the kids.
This gun is yours, I'll check the back.
And don't let anyone in.

I said before, it's in the tune.
It turns you quick.
Some subtle spore you might ignore
until it starts to make you sick.

Something was off when he rode into town.
We've got a lot to be worried about.

Drown out the sound
Cover your ears
We're getting out of here
Far away

I've got my keys, we'll reach the car
if we run fast enough.
Cover your ears, you can't resist.
Neither of us is strong enough.

We'll find a boat - sail out to sea,
where it can't follow us.
I'll grab my coat.

Did someone turn the radio on...?

Something is off,
Little voice, strange and soft.

Strikingly clear, it sings right in my ear -

Turn up the sound.

You are mechanical, catatonic animal.
Singing subliminal, puppeteering hymnal.
Dogwhistle minister, gather up the stragglers.

The song you're hearing is your mind disappearing.

Hamelin, ME  (w/scratch vox)

written for r/songaweek 2022 - week 37 (Theme: Minimalism)

*recorded on a cell phone*

Down And Out (Rough cut)

written for r/songaweek 2022 - week 48 (Theme: Lies)

-Tripping Over Your Tongue-

You can't be boxed in
when you're full of inventions
They occupy a vacuum
where facts have been ejected

You're far from a paragon
or a demigod.
But you take the shape and ape one
You're more than happy to take the spot
So long as they'll mistake you for one

But I've sussed you out

I don't know why you think that you're larger than life-
I've only seen you on a screen that was pocket-sized.
You don't care who you hurt when you let your mouth run.
One day the time will come when you're tripping
tripping over your tongue

You had us all going
an attention-grabbing circus
Even with the seams showing
We didn't think you could hurt us

in all that wild energy
was an enemy
A malicious and a fake one
We were victims of spectacle, of apathy
But now we're going to escape one

Driver

spoonman-42

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