LYRICS:

So many eyes on a distant time
Glorified an insistent right
Too many times on a separate side
So many lies about a distant time

Misinformation meets the mass
Who drink a toast and raise an empty glass
When all the subjects are subjected
To the fucked up will of the never elected

It don’t make much sense at all
When the one defines the all
And I won’t be your casualty ‘cause
Your prophecy is not for me
Too many times looking back to a divisive day
Your only crime is the fact that you are in the way

The bleakness goes through me
From here until infirmary
No weakness -- where are we?
We’re marching to eternity

And I object to your objective
Your misbegotten prime directive
You line your plots with plotted lines
While we pick at thoughts on our picket signs

It’s sympathetic overload
As we watch information explode
And my Tivo captures the clips
Its keyword is APOCALYPSE and I
Can’t channel my rage in ways that others won’t dismiss
Can’t fathom why do I feel so god damn powerless

The bleakness goes through me
From here until infirmary
No weakness -- where are we?
We’re marching to eternity

Current

Eternal March

LYRICS:

Incensed by your incense
And tempered by your temper
Discovered by the government
Dissenter in the center 

The accent is no accident
Attempted by the temptor
They sacrificed the sacrament
Embedded in the ember

It’s knotted up
It’s not enough
It’s knotted up
It’s not enough

Your sympathetic soliloquy
Is spoken without sympathy
Tormented by their tranquility
Overly

Current Candidates

Diagnostics (demo)

LYRICS: 

Incensed by your incense 
And tempered by your temper 
Discovered by the government 
Dissenter in the center 

The accent is no accident 
Attempted by the temptor 
They sacrificed the sacrament 
Embedded in the ember 

It’s knotted up 
It’s not enough 
It’s knotted up 
It’s not enough 

Your sympathetic soliloquy 
Is spoken without sympathy 
Tormented by their tranquility 
Overly

Diagnostics

I finished the last part of this one first and worried it might be too much like Morrissey/The Smiths. But instead of changing it, I decided to lean into it and make the rest of the song a kind of an in-the-style-of-Moz homage. All lyrics and melodies my own though. I think.

Thanks to my friend and ex-bandmate Jason https://soundcloud.com/jason-tutin for his beta listener suggestions for this one, all of which I implemented.

LYRICS:

(You stay far away)
(You stay far away)

If you want to find my heart
You better take the second left
Nonchalant, will you embark
Before I die of neglect?
(So bereft of cleverness)

I wonder why I feel like garbage
Whenever I’m at your disposal
But alone is where the heart is
Awaiting your counter proposal
(Reassess what I do best)

So dearly, have you departed
So nearly, disregarded
From the brome and through the marshes
Buspirone is where my heart is
Salivary salvation
Psychomotor retardation

I want you to go
I want you to stay
Your humor is so dry
It whisks my wit away
You’ve not been very close so far
You’ve not been very close so far

You've Not Been Very Close (So Far)

Since I've recently been fighting a pretty bad case of ballad-itis, I decided the antidote would be a much harder rocking number and this is the result. I think I'm cured? Kindly excuse my terrible French accent (and the fact that I'm pronouncing English words with a terrible French accent).

LYRICS:

Contretemps
Keep jumping to contusions 
Argument
I don’t wanna shout when you are near

Reprimand
Patience is such a virtue
Firebrand
I swear I’d never hurt you dear

You caress with a fist
You're the one I can't resist
But everything is a fight
Mend the left, cut the right

Your supply is in demand
I'm too stood up to even stand
Your embrace, a succor punch
Shame me twice, fool me (once)

You’re arguably great but I don’t want to fight
Weakness may be might
Armament
(Can’t shout enough to convey)

So arcuately shaped, Eros taking flight
Meek display to night
Permanent
(How I don't want to shout today)

So don’t hold back on my account
‘Cause that account is overdrawn
Now a negative amount
You went past go and got to gone

And with all due respect 
I do not respect you
You're the cause, I'm the effect
But don’t let that affect you

Contretemps

LYRICS:

Ever feel like you're boxed in?
It don’t matter what side you're on
Every body is a toxin
Every atom is aligned 

Nothing left but it is all right 

Say no more 

Irrational eyes all look to disguise
Whatever they cannot rationalize 
Society's skin so very stretched thin
Why does "humane" mean good and kind?

Nothing's right but there's so much left 

Say no more 

And two wrongs don’t make you righteous
But maybe you might just
Be deafened by the echo chamber
Adrenaline blindness
Discredited kindness
Competitive victimhood behavior

Say no more

Nothing Left (demo)

I wonder just how many ways
I will self sabotage today
Will you please hold me to a count?
Is there a set up on a mount?

Enough of the nonsense
It don’t even make sense
Don’t dwell on your weakness
Dispel all the bleakness
Just clear all the clutter from your mind
You know everything will be just fine
You gotta just believe it

You cannot detect all of the signs
You gotta accept you can’t read minds 
If it don’t help, you should leave it

I cannot take it any more 
(You don’t want to turn around)
I just can't take it anymore

You’re just getting slandered
By your own double standards
You succeed when you do it
There’s no need to review it
Perfection’s a slope that can’t be climbed
Rejection should not make you disinclined
It’s a phony ultimatum

Refuse to be graded by the grind
Approval’s a blaze that can make you blind
There are chances if you take them 

Enough of the nonsense
It don’t even make sense
Don’t dwell on your weakness
Dispel all the bleakness
Just clear all the clutter from your mind
You know everything will be just fine
You gotta just believe it

You cannot detect all of the signs
You gotta accept you can’t read minds 
If it don’t help, you should leave it

You say that I am
You say that I’m not
Ad infinitum

Riven

LYRICS:

I’m the hand around the clock
I’m the earth around the sun
I race around in circles but
I can’t get away from anyone

You tried to give me food for thought
But I’d lost my appetite
I’m undermined and overwrought 
You left because I was not (right)

Chasing
Around
Around and around

I buy time I cannot spend
My wait’s a means to a dead end
(Like that damned wheelbarrow on which so much depends)
But my depression's not so great
Without affection I can't (hate)

Chase you
Around
Around and around

If there’s somewhere you don’t have to be
You should try hard not to be there
If you’re somewhere you don’t want to be
Then you’ll probably find me there

Chasing
Around
Around and around

Chasing

My (per)version of New Order's timeless classic. I was going to just do this as a guitar-and-vocal folk song but decided it needed a tiny bit more oomph so added drums and a wee bit of bass. But mostly there's just the one guitar and vocals.

I greatly enjoy revising keyboard songs and making them into guitar songs and vice versa. Stay tuned for my classical piano (per)version of Guns & Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine. (You think I'm kidding but I intend to follow through on this threat haha.)

Age Of Consent (New Order Cover)

To ring in the new decade, I decided to record a song that saved my life in the previous decade. One of my all-time favorite Guided by Voices songs.

I opted to record it bare bones, Ed Sheeran style, using the built in drum machine and looper on my Zoom G1on pedal and just playing whatever Doug Gillard-esque flourishes came to mind. 

Just sang it and played it straight through, with one overdub (bonus points if you can guess what it is!). Here are the results, warts and all (lots o' warts)! 

Happy New Year everyone -- I hope you make it a good one!

JJ/Subject to Revision

Dayton OH 19 Something 5 (Guided by Voices Cover)

Lover/maker of everything from Alt/Indie Rock, power pop, jangle, postpunk/new wave, punk, noise pop & shoegaze to darkwave, electronic indie & synthpop. Addicted to chime-y, grimy guitars. I really have no idea what genre I am. Perhaps you'll be kind enough to tell me. All lyrics posted with each track. I'm prone to remaking a single song in a variety of different genres. You've been warned.

Subject To Revision

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