Formerly called "untitled mega banger" this will probably be in the track 2 spot on Of My Own Space and Time I Am Queen. I had to write & completely scrap words for this, but sometimes that's an important part of the process. It turned out to be a really positive spin on one's existence as an artist, maybe this will be an antidote to the doubtfulness of "A Song Is Just a Song" or "Oblivion and Creation."
lyrics
I want to dance to the beat
Of someone else’s mind
This body’s too alive
To be kept confined 

Am I not allowed to want what I want?
Now I’ve run out of the shame that I was taught
Telling me to settle for just enough
But it’s infinite when I make my own love


And cultivate some beauty 
Where there was none but dust and guns
To leave a trail of petals where I’ve gone
To reach beyond what we’ve been shown
To touch the dark but feel the spark
To bring the acolytes of life along

This may be a warning or a treasure map
But it’s not the territory or the fact
Songs are just like candy if you don’t dig deep
Tarantella looking just like ecstasy

(but we can dig deep, we can sing in the dark and still breathe)

So cultivate some beauty 
Where there was none but dust and guns
And leave a trail of petals where you’ve gone
And reach beyond what you’ve been shown
To touch the dark to feel the spark
To bring the acolytes of life along

Cultivate

I made this for the full experience of a Halloween show using various accompaniments the circus artists performed to.

Haunt_GhostsOfAccompanimentsPast

The title track to No Little Sparrow's upcoming dark ambient album!

2019 subscriber-only ambient works

We Never Lost Control

Klingon Pop Warrior is collaborating with Unwoman on a lovely EP of covers! This is the teaser medley for the kickstarter. EP will be released publicly in late Spring 2022.

Klingon Pop Warrior & Unwoman Covers Sampler

The most hideous track I will ever post, probably!
Last night, on day 2 of a Covid infection, I fainted while trying to floss my teeth. As I came to I heard this weird binaural noise sound, similar to tinnitus but with irregularity in each ear. 

THIS IS FREE FOR YOUR MOVIE SOUND EFFECTS! 
Foley artists: to complete the fainting effect, add a rush of whitish noise in the center channel, and fade in and out. En...j..oy?

FAINTING SOUND - not a song

Clips of rough drafts of 11 songs for Unwoman's upcoming album. Fund the kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/unwoman/circling-unwoman-original-album-2014

Unwoman CIRCLING - Album Teaser Medley

Draft from my upcoming album (sept 22, 2023) Desire Paths. 
https://unwoman.bandcamp.com/album/desire-paths

I have tons of free music elsewhere and see no reason to invest my time in soundcloud since I get almost no attention here. Find me elsewhere y'all.

Photos of me by 2ndlifephotography

The body keeps the score
The body keeps the score
Though I’ve been gone a year or more
The body knows the score

If I don’t have to be good
And life is wild precious and mine
Can I take back my time?

Did it/didn’t mean something?
Ready for the grand gesture?
You’ll have to act impressed, yeah
Will I let you be
The villain of my memoirs?
Or will I keep it censored?

I’ve been an actor all my life
Ever since I learned how not to cry
Always putting logic at the fore
But now I yearn for my heart even more
[Has it all been a lie?]

And the TV says, the TV tells me to:
“When reality bites too much
Dissociate! Dissociate!
And you don’t wanna bite the dust
Dissociate!”

I’ve been an actor all my life
Ever since I learned how not to cry
Always putting logic at the fore
But now I yearn for my heart even more
And it seems a power to disconnect
But what of those who never get it back?
[The body keeps the score etc]

When the medium no longer matters
Now everyone has every access
If the TV’s dead something still tells me to…

“When reality bites too much” etc

Could I direct myself
At what cost do I reattach those strings?

Actor (The Body Keeps the Score)

Cruelty

Commissioned by The Mog! 
Written by Sam Pottle and Jim Henson

MuppetShowSong

Track one on Circling
https://unwoman.bandcamp.com/album/circling
This is, in part, a response to Hakim Bey's The Temporary Autonomous Zone. hermetic.com/bey/taz_cont.html


Flowering Vines

My friend Ramon Yvarra made a player piano (named Amelia). It was to be used in Fallen Cosmos in SF, February 2014, as part of an installation within an enormous interactive art event based on Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, and he wanted variations on the music that's written on a butt, for Amelia the piano to play, so I composed these, using a combination of live performance input from my actual-piano-that's-also-a-midi-controller, Oh Don Piano, and derivations from a midi file of the original theme. 

On the first night of Fallen Cosmos I snuck away from my station at Rococo Co and stood next to the piano playing this piece, I listened quietly and proudly to the entire cycle as people came and went.

This is unfortunately not Amelia playing it, but a fake piano. 

The Butt Variations

This is the final-ish version, which my Patreon and Bandcamp subscribers have the ability to download, and you have the ability to stream. Song originally by Hozier. All performance and production by Unwoman. Support my patreon here if you want to download this and, so far, four other awesome covers: https://www.patreon.com/unwoman

Take Me To Church 4-30-15

This is one of the semi-casual songpoems I produced for the Uncovered Volume 3 kickstarter backers. The idea was that I would spend about half a day working on it, but not agonize over details. I probably spent a little more time on this, but am very happy with the result!

Words by Danielle Roberts
Believing once you loved me, yes, I twist
white flowers in my hair: a plaited crown,
one made for fools and lovers. Flowers kissed
my forehead and my ears, adorned my gown
with fallen petals, floated onward down
the stream, beneath the willow, branches tipped
with new-formed leaves, a sign of life. If drowned
by other than my grief I cannot say; I slipped
beneath the water. Petals drift like clouds,
the silent stream is swirling round the rocks
I layer—one by one—upon my dress.
I’ve built myself a castle—I am queen
of my own fate.  A cautious crawdad stalks
my thoughts: if like a crab I could regress.

(image is public domain, by John Everett Millais)

Ophelia (Songpoem) Words by Danielle Roberts

War Stories Clip Medley For Kickstarter

inspired by the songwriting challenge here 
https://www.patreon.com/posts/sunday-contest-28370965
Words by Nikki Stein https://www.patreon.com/nikkileestein
Music by Unwoman https://www.patreon.com/unwoman

I forced a bot to listen to 1000 hours of Amanda Palmer songs and then asked it to write an Amanda Palmer song

i figure you’re probably landing
right about when the power goes out 
and i’m hoping you’ll call from the airport
but it’s late and i’m starting to doubt it
i keep thinking that maybe you’re walking
to my place on the west side alone
which is crazy and not safe but better
than thinking you don’t want to phone me
(CHORUS)
I know there’s a crack in everything
and i know that’s how the light gets in
so find a crack on 42nd street
and climb out the other side to me

it’s quicker if you’re brave enough
to cut straight through the park
you could get here with your eyes closed
you could get here in the dark

until someone turns the lights on
we can put off all the fighting
things seems worse when you can’t see them
we can make believe it’s all ending

it’s more or less how i expected
you and me here in manhattan
me in this pitch black apartment
and you waiting down at the cab stand
and you’re saying you’re exhausted
you’re not sure if you can make it
(CHORUS)
I know there’s a crack in everything
and I know that’s how the light gets in
so find a crack on 42nd street
and climb out the other side to me

your flight was turbulent and long
and after all i have no power
it’s not like you don't want to see me
but there’s hot food and a shower
at your cousin’s place in brooklyn
it’s not personal, you mean that
(chorus chords)
Some shows go on regardless
of the blackouts around them
and the players might be mad
or they were just blind to begin with
you joke the lights are bright on broadway
and it’s proof we were pretending
that just in time for our big number
the generator finally kicked in…

I would never think to cancel
I’m the consummate performer
but you have to understand
some shows just can’t go on
in these conditions
I have to refund all the tickets
I’ll call all the magazines
and if they pan us, then so be it

and as i listen to traffic
which is unreasonably calm
i fall asleep with the lights off
and when i wake up they’re all on
tomorrow i will learn
that on broadway they kept singing
and that some resourceful chefs
went on cooking in their kitchens

it only takes some well placed smart phones
to see your dinner and your lover
so it turns out that there’s plenty
you can do with all the lights off
like sing show tunes or make raw food
or fall out of love with someone

I forced a bot to listen to 1000 hours of Amanda Palmer songs (draft)

Cover of a Dead Can Dance Song. Order the album Lemniscate (April 2013) now here: http://unwoman.bandcamp.com/album/lemniscate-uncovered-volume-2

Rough Draft - In Power We Entrust The Love Advocated

Rough draft of Ladytron's "Destroy Everything You Touch." Order the album Lemniscate (April 2013) now here: http://unwoman.bandcamp.com/album/lemniscate-uncovered-volume-2

Destroy Everything You Touch

Fake history lesson:

There once was a queen in a peaceful land. Widowed and childless, paranoid about losing power, she focuses on defenses against invisible hordes, which conveniently means letting roses grow wild all around the castle. She ignores the starvation of her staff, who eventually flee. The villagers rule themselves and only a few still send tribute. She has one withered old companion who has stayed out of pity. He devotes himself to fashioning adornments for her out of roses but is constantly pricking himself. The people in the village eventually forget her and she dies alone enthroned and ensconced and wrapped in dried roses. The old companion lives to be like 200, eventually dies too while piling more and more flowers atop her desiccated corpse.

Lyrics:
All around the castle the queen once sent men
To dig up the vines that choke and starve the garden
But the prickliest hedges yield the sweetest scent
So she decreed the roses were her protection

“I have every right to be here
And this place is mine alone
If you leave me the gods will keep and feed me:
I will stay on my throne”

Cold and forgotten she remains with just one
Pity or loyalty, or a twisted kind of love
Impassable hedges enclose mossy stone
And rise over towers and block out the sun

Now she declares all the roses were made just for this:
Pick them and strip them, adorn her for worship

Let the thorns grow for the promise of a rose
But roses grew thorns so we wouldn’t disturb the flowers
Command all you want beasts men and gods
Green growing things obey only their own laws

(And the pretty ones get to keep their thorns
But the prickly ones have beauty all their own)

“I have every right to be here
And this place is mine alone
If you leave me the gods will keep and feed me:
I will stay on my throne”

“Oh curse this broken ground
bones and thorns and dust
who will dig them out —
the histories of us?”

Thorns

Solo cellist-singer-producer with lots of free music (click my link). I've also played with Amanda Palmer, Abney Park, Stripmall Architecture, Vernian Process, Caustic, Voltaire, Doctor Popular...

unwoman

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