Lyrics

Hidden from view in plain sight
Unique is her story
But I’ve no right to ask what the story is
Her choice and not her choice
The right question to ask is always “Who benefits?”

Smile with your eyes if you’re smiling at all

Smile With Your Eyes

This is an updated version of an old song of mine called "Bottom of the Ocean".

https://soundcloud.com/user-710481450/death-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-without-lyrics

The lyrics are completely new and the guitar parts are substantially different. This version, unlike the above recording, also has singing. The vocals were recorded very quickly a while ago using my computer's internal microphone. At the time it wasn't my plan to upload a new version of the song, but when I decided to I couldn't be bothered re-recording the vocals.

Lyrics

Say the word
Say the word, I’ll listen
Say the word
Say the word, I’ll listen
Any other word
Distant words I know not
Fades away
Disappears like magic

Turn to me
When in need of comfort
Speak your mind
I’ll praise all that’s uttered
Any time of day
Wisdom spills forth violently
Freed from its cage
Freed to another enslave

Boundaries set and boxes ticked, all there is
All there is

Gift-wrapped just for you
Soundproof cause of you

Say the word
Say the word, I’ll listen
Say the word
Say the word, I’ll listen
Closed the door
Bid farewell to others
Now I see
What you want me to see

Boundaries set and boxes ticked, all there is
All there is

Gift-wrapped just for you
Soundproof cause of you

Allan Bain's Album

Manipulation Manifest

The first track I've completed using real guitar and bass. As always, the singing could be a lot better.

Video Games (Lana Del Rey cover)

I actually came up with the basis for this song – most of the bass and rhythm-guitar parts, the drum beat for the verse, a rough structure, and even the subject matter for the lyrics – in 2012. I then worked on it a little more in early 2014 but only completed this version (with lyrics) in January of this year (2016). I'm not happy with the vocals, but I never seem to get round to re-recording them, so I thought I'd just upload the song without them for the time being.

Lyrics (subject to change):

Still rearranging deckchairs
On this ill-fated ship
Fighting over who should get the best view
Of the clouds up ahead

"Sleepwalking", an oft-used metaphor
That doesn't quite capture
The short-sightedness of living for the moment
As the icebergs reveal themselves

Yet "short-sightedness" rings hollow
When some aboard have sold rivets for scrap
And are standing suspiously close to the lifeboats

The same people who yelled "Go faster!"
Are now on their way to shore
Busy cursing collective recklessness
"This is the price we had to pay"

But who are those gently floating
To their watery graves?
The people without the means to get on one of those lifeboats

Bottom Of The Ocean (without lyrics)

For no good reason I decided to make a hardcore version of this song:

https://soundcloud.com/user-710481450/kielioppivirheeton-kielitaidoton

This is the first of my tracks to feature other people than just me (on backing vocals and mouth organ). Some of the vocals are marginally out of time in places, but for the sake of my vocal chords I decided to keep re-recording to a minimum this time around.

Lyrics:

Et enää osaa kolmea kieltä
Et edes sun omaasi
Kielet, joita osaat, eivät kiinnosta
Ei oo merkitystä niissä ollenkaan
Tässä maassa yks* vain lasketaan
Ja se on meidän
Tästä lähtien olet pelkkä kielitaidoton

(Et oo mitään muuta kuin)

Kielitaidoton, koska määritämme niin
On se kai loukaavaa, ajattelematonta ja väärin
Mutta sanomme mitä huvittaa
Se on kielemme
Ole kiltti äläkä kyseenalaista herrojasi, kielitaidoton

Toistakaa perässäni
Mitä teidän mamujen pitäisi ymmärtää
Finska pratande är bättre folk

Pyyhi perseitämme
Jaa pitsojamme**
Siivoa lattioitamme
Opettele kieliämme*, kielitaidoton

***********************************

* Jos kyseessä on jonkinlaisen viran työkuvaus, ruotsin kieli lasketaan mukaan, mutta jos kyse on ei-suomalaisesta pohjoismaalaisesta, joka ei osaa suomea, hänet leimataan kielitaidottomaksi ruotsin kielen tai samanlaisen kielen taidoistaan huolimatta ainakin "suomenkielisessä Suomessa".

En tiedä miten "kielitaidottomuutta" käsitellään "ruotsinkielisessä Suomessa", sen lehdissä jne.

** Kuulemma pitsoja kuljetetaan tai toimitetaan Suomessa eikä jaeta.

Kielitaidoton (Hardcore Punk Version)

This was one of the first bits of music I came up with with the album that ultimately became “Ambiguity in Adversity” in mind. For a long time I had an unclear plan to develop it into the album’s closing track but at some point rejected this idea and stopped working on it.

"Last Song"

At some point I decided that the album should have 11 tracks, long before most of the songs were even ready. Although I tried taking bits of this song – when it was just a bunch of riffs, melodies etc. – and adding them to other pieces of music that ultimately became those 11 tracks, I ended up electing not to use them. The lyrics would've also been different from those of the other songs, as they are a commentary on the way cancer is discussed in the media and in society in general as opposed to anything related to our personal experiences, so they would’ve been slightly at odds with the rest of the album’s lyrics.

The actual song ends at 4.04 minutes, but I couldn’t bring myself to bin those bits of music you hear afterwards without giving them a proper send-off.

Lastly, the first verse could be misconstrued, so I’d like to clarify that it’s the discourse surrounding cancer that, in my opinion, operates with an implicit Cartesian bias.   

Lyrics:

Call me a Cartesian, and maybe you’d be right
At least in this context, ’cause that’s what’s implied
By the mind/body dichotomy
To which most implicitly subscribe and [which they] perpetuate

No control over the outcome
No Übermensch
A desire to live, a thirst that can’t be quenched
Agency, a myth revealed
Your body the battlefield
It’s doctors versus the disease

If you die, are you weak ‘cause you didn’t fight hard enough?
There was no battle to be had
It’s no battle if you can’t mount a defence*

A triumphant struggle or a tragic end?
Superficial bullshit, the stuff of make-pretend**
Clichés, comforting narratives
Seduce and hold us captive
Melt hearts; dull brains 

* I would’ve rather used “mount your own defence”, but it didn't fit the music
** The internet tells me that “make-believe” is the proper term.

Battle Fatigue

For a long time I couldn’t decide how to proceed with the album track “Sleepwalking Through Life”, as I had two bases of the song: 1) something very roughly akin to what would become the album version of the song, and 2) something very similar but which made use of an ascending chord progression I liked but couldn’t work out a way to use. Not long before entering the home straight of finishing this EP, I got the idea of using this progression and building a new short song round it.

Lyrics:

Do I want to know
Do I need to know
Is it wrong not to want to know
Is it fair not to want to know
About another’s misery?
I still remember our own

Trying to Forget

I’m not much of a guitarist, but when I do pick my guitar up, the songs from the album I play and sing are “National Catheter Removal Day”, “The Spotlight”, “Conclusion” and “Inducted…”, as I make most use of guitar chords in these. I didn’t feel that either of the first two of these deserved an acoustic makeover, since the first isn’t particularly loud to begin with and the second would’ve probably ended up being a bit of a strummy busking number – essentially the same song just played on acoustic guitar and acoustic bass with lighter drums – and therefore relatively pointless, in my opinion.

The last two songs, however, always struck me as sounding substantially different in acoustic form: on “Conclusion” the guitar chords’ open strings are far more discernible while “Inducted…” is more reflective and less brutal, partly as a result of a guitar part I came up with for the pre-chorus.

I couldn’t get a good strumming sound from my software for this track, so the chords sound a bit clunky.

Here's the original: 
User-710481450 – Conclusion-album-version

Lyrics:

Time to go to bed
 It’s late, it’s been a tiring past few years
Lie down
 Rest your weary head a moment you deserve

Sleep long, sleep sound 
Dream away this nightmare

If I could I’d turn back the hands of time 
But if I did so what would be lost in the process?
 What we’ve learned, how we’ve changed, who we’ve become 
And what would it be we’d have gained in return?

Innocence?

The light at the end of the tunnel was blinding my eyes 
But now the glow’s fading fast as I face the future

[Chorus]

Ignorance?

Conclusion (acoustic)

I had the recurring section and overall structure of this song ready well before completing the album, but once I decided the album would have 11 tracks I put work on this track on hold.

I had in my mind a passage of noise rock for this song but wasn’t sure how to create this on my computer, so I ended up with something merely approximating the sound I was looking for.

My wife helped with the lyrics of this song.

Lyrics:

Been cheated 
Thought it was the end 
The cruelest of cruelest of tricks to play 
Stop, rewind, start all over again

No longer inhabit the same reality 
No longer share the same references 
No longer in a bubble trying to escape

[Verse 1]

Dreaming of what we have 
Still fearing the worst is yet to come

To turn away, inexcusable 
Abandonment 
A lifeline to the outside world 
A friend in need

Trying not to Forget

I’m not much of a guitarist, but when I do pick my guitar up, the songs from the album I play and sing are “National Catheter Removal Day”, “The Spotlight”, “Conclusion” and “Inducted…”, as I make most use of guitar chords in these. I didn’t feel that either of the first two of these deserved an acoustic makeover, since the first isn’t particularly loud to begin with and the second would’ve probably ended up being a bit of a strummy busking number – essentially the same song just played on acoustic guitar and acoustic bass with lighter drums – and therefore relatively pointless, in my opinion.

The last two songs, however, always struck me as sounding substantially different in acoustic form: on “Conclusion” the guitar chords’ open strings are far more discernible while “Inducted…” is more reflective and less brutal, partly as a result of a guitar part I came up with for the pre-chorus.

Although I’m generally happy with the vocals on this track, there are a couple of funny sounds that I only noticed upon re-listening to the recordings weeks after I’d done them, and at that stage I couldn’t be bothered recording them again.

One last thing: If you think the song ends a few notes too early, I agree...sometimes. For some strange reason, the length of the very final section sounds right to me one listen and then wrong the next, and when I tried lengthening it, this new length also sometimes sounded right and sometimes wrong.

Here's the original version of this song: 
User-710481450 – Inducted-to-the-hall-of-infamy-album-version

Lyrics:

Lies motionless 
Stares blankly into space, appetite gone 
Two forkfuls of rice for lunch, a triumph

Hooked up and tanked up 
A tube protruding from her chest
 The machine beeps once more
 What’s next on the menu?

Where has she gone? 
Our happy, contented girl 
All to be expected, the doctors assure us

Bursts of energy 
Hid the tick-ticking, ticking, ticking, ticking 
Last week a dream from which we’ve awoken

Hairs on her pillow 
The truth laid bare

Everybody in the parents’ room talks with a frankness 
Most outside this bubble could probably never comprehend 
The occasional tear shed, but mostly dry eyes in this house
 All pales in comparison to a fatal car crash or death at sea

The day draws nearer 
When she’ll get to leave what’s become her home for the last four weeks 
Be embraced by the touch of fresh air on her face

What felt like an eternity 
Now an ambiguous memory 
Full of sadness and fear but also warmth and hope

[Chorus]

Inducted to the Hall of Infamy (acoustic)

This is a cover of a song written by a former bandmate of mine. Here's the original demo, upon which I based my version:

https://soundcloud.com/dedalusaberdeen/lough-neagh

And he's recently recorded a re-titled synthwave version of it:

https://dannymadigan.bandcamp.com/album/lost-shore

As with most of the music I make, I set out with the plan of making something noisy, but at some point I realised that it was starting to sound like pretty much EVERY SINGLE THING I MAKE, so I decided to go the whole hog, inserting a horn part and tuned percussion into the mix.

Lough Neagh

Lough Neagh (cover)

These are some demos I've made using relatively basic midi sounds and my poor singing. Additional information (e.g. lyrics) can be found on each track's own page.

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