Just a little instrumental track I threw together today that I thought I would share. Hoping to finish up some more substantial projects in the near future.

sedated (instrumental)

Just a quick demo I threw together in a raw moment. Not at all polished, but I haven't uploaded anything in quite a while so I thought I would throw it out there.

"Well I love you so
So it hurts to know
That I can't follow where you go

It might be the way
That you have to take
And I, I can't make you stay

I just wish that I could take your pain away

And the ties that bind
Will not come untwined
But I will miss you on this way

And where was he
In your misery?
And why is he silent to me now? 

It feels like I'm just screaming at the sun"

follow

A song for the new year.

I want to get back to posting more demos in 2023, so I'll kick it off by just sending up a very simple and unpolished instrumental recording, mistakes and all. Hope you enjoy.

a dirge (instrumental)

vignette (instrumental)

A song for Easter.

"When death's penumbra swallows up
Every living light
Its fleshless fingers groping out
Beyond the bounds of night
I strain to hear on sighing winds 
Of hope beyond my sight
But all is still and silent 
Save the carrion fowl's flight
These heralds of Hades bring his boast
The taunt of death they sing
'Can you not see my victory?
Do you not feel my sting?' 

Death is not the last word"

the last word

Every ending's the beginning
Of the same old ending
And I'm running, no displacement
Only distance, my existence
Such persistence in letting you down again
Perhaps it's time...
But you won't let me go

graduation

Heal me with a wounded heart
Animate my failed resolve
Pull these wires from my skin
They'll tear the flesh, but I'll be whole within

And begin to live
Like a human being

'Cause I've lost control and I'm growing tired
Can't trust myself 'cause I'm a liar
I'm losing hope and I need to know
What is the key to being whole?

Now I've a noose for every limb
They suffocate rebellion
So rend the sinew from the bone
Displace the ones I've let upon your throne

For who you serve
Comes back in turn

I've lost control and I'm growing tired
Can't trust myself 'cause I'm a liar
I'm losing hope and I need to know
What is the key to being whole?

Please realign all my desires
'Cause I've lost control and I'm growing tired
Can't trust myself 'cause I'm a liar
I'm losing hope and I need to know
What is the key to being whole?

Fracture

A vagrant with a feckless heart
Preparing to depart again
Eyes are strained upon the dark
Ever searching out the stars

This darkling world
A wilderness
And we are doomed
To wander it

Stumbling listless, roaming blind
By a legend ill-defined
The firmament that separates
Is firmer than his trust so desolate

This darkling world
A wilderness
And we are doomed
To wander it

Wander

Bind them up, these broken hands
Idle to the point of death
Fingers limp as splintered spears
Holding loose what should be dear

Tear them out, these vacant eyes
Perceiving only starless skies
Blind unto the waking world
Best not to see until they're cured

Until They're Cured

Every ending's the beginning
Of the same old ending
And I'm running, no displacement
Only distance, my existence
Such persistence
In letting you down
Again
Perhaps it's time
But you won't let me go

Graduation

Fourteen eyes upon me
Seven heads surround me
As them, I am nothing
My head they are crushing

Seven times assailed
Fourteen years I've failed
They say I am nothing
My head they are crushing

I'm surrounded, these thoughts an ocean
Waves are crashing in constant motion
I am drowning, I am devoured
Can you hear me? What is the hour? 

Can you calm my cerebral chaos?
Can you calm my cerebral chaos?
Can you calm?
Can you calm?

Cerebral Chaos

Solar eclipse, apocalypse
It's dark beneath the sun
Solar eclipse, nightfall affixed
Before the earth has spun
Before the day is done
Before the night's begun

Solar eclipse, the stars aren't fixed
Have they fallen to the ground?
Solar eclipse, great dark abyss
In the sky they can't be found
In the sky no longer housed
The sky has been uncrowned

But you don't own me
And I don't owe you
So why am I staying?
Why am I in the dark?

Solar eclipse, this orbit skips
A hundred thousand days
Solar eclipse, I do predict
Tomorrow as the same
Tomorrow once again
Tomorrow darkness reigns

Solar eclipse, nocturnal fix
Addicted to this shade
Solar eclipse, I am transfixed
It makes me feel afraid
It makes me feel detained
It makes me want to break away

But you don't own me
And I don't owe you
So why am I staying?
Why am I in the dark?

Solar Eclipse

When death's penumbra swallows up
Every living light
It's fleshless fingers groping out
Beyond the bounds of night
I strain to hear on sighing winds
Of hope beyond my sight
But all is still and silent 
Save the carrion fowls' flight
These heralds of Hades bring his boast
The taunt of death they sing
"Can you not see my victory?
Do you not feel my sting?" 

Death is not the last word
Death is not the last word

The Last Word

This is just a simple two chord loop with layers that I wrote in an airport. It was an overnight layover, and I wanted to try to fight off the upcoming jetlag of a 12 hour time change, so I fiddled with this.

jetlag

jetlag (instrumental)

"She said “I’m yours to discover” 
But all that I’ve uncovered
Is a lonely, cold existence past the surface

She said “You know there’s no leaving
Now won’t you stop your dreaming
If you try to leave you’ll find you still remain”   

Let me go, Ontario
Let me find the place where my heart belongs

Let me go, Ontario
I love you still, but its time to say farewell

Your auburn hair like autumn leaves
With golden shoes, and eyes that seem
To glisten blue like a thousand lakes

One moment tranquil like the fall
You crash in like a winter’s squall
A waterfall of dark falls harsh and violent

Let me go, Ontario
Let me find the place where my heart belongs

Let me go, Ontario
I love you still, but its time to say farewell

You’ve filled me up with sorrow
So I’m leaving on the morrow
You’re icy grip has finally run its course

They say that in that great beyond  
All the cold and dark and pain is gone
And the beauty by your mist is unhindered

So let me go, Ontario
Let me find the place where my heart belongs

Let me go, Ontario
I loved you once, but its time I said farewell
Its time I said farewell "

ontario

"In that moment
The stars were as close as they've been
I could reach out and touch them it seemed

Cold, pale distance
Breached only by faint memory
Now reaching its hand out to me

The world but a mist
I can't believe that I missed seeing You

As it all fades away
I find I've got nothing to say

The darkest shadow
Was lifted from over my eyes
I could see now past earth's hazy lies

My greatest hope realized
Fear has met its demise, I'm with You now

You know better than I
What truly satisfies my heart

But, I still wait for that moment to come"

eucatastrophe

"I am midnight with no dawn
The pale moonlight is all I know
A drowning flower in a storm
No stranger to petrichor
A barren oak in winter's freeze
Still waiting for a summer breeze
A hapless wanderer in desert lands
Whose grave is somewhere in the sand

The more I live my life I see 
The things that I desire to be
Aren't to be found

This constant itch I do believe
Signals oh so clear to me
To say goodbye
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

A lonely probe sent out to space
With no returning date
A desolate mountain stands alone
Yet to be peaked by any soul
A shipwrecked vessel off the coast
With naught to salvage but a ghost
A heap of bones left in the wild
Waiting to come alive

I may have seized autonomy
But I don't feel very free
A slave to myself

But I'll keep building in my pride
Yet all the plans I could contrive
They lead straight down

Wake up, wake up, 'cause you've been sleeping
Wake up, wake up, 'cause you've been dreaming"

wake up

"I wait in the silence for you to utter
Words that will make my bones shudder
By my bed where my knees rest, the aroma of incense
Is overwhelmed by darkest stains of blood

It's here that I killed you again
Each time with a dimming apprehension
After I'm still on my knees, begging and pleading you please
To raise me from the dead with you"

sorry

"I want to do these things for you
But the flesh is not willing
I want to die to the passions of youth
But the flesh is not willing

A body of death, it comes for me
I can't escape, it's at the door
Oh wretched man, the time has come
Your crimes will be your reckoning

Why do I keep on killing you? 
This wretched man I am
How can I escape from the truth
Of the wretched man I am?

A body of death, it comes for me
I can't escape, it's at the door
Oh wretched man, your time has come
Your crimes will be, your reckoning

But thanks be to God, and our Lord Jesus Christ
He's delivered me from death, is sanctifying me for holiness"

wretched man

"As children we feared
That monsters were near
But now we know
They're living in our souls"

nightsong

This is a track that I wrote quite a while back. It was originally a shoegaze song with heavy, distorted guitars wailing with the same bass line and driving drums. Then, I tried to turn it into a super poppy, happy song, just for fun, but didn't love that. Then, I was playing around and came up with this version, which I kind of liked. Not too poppy, but it still juxtaposes the paradoxical emotions present in the lyrics, happiness and sadness, with the dancing synths right underneath passive, slightly distorted, disengaged vocals. 

I hope you like it. This is just a rough demo, I haven't really mixed it or EQ'd it yet or anything, but I thought I'd share it anyways, because it's been sitting in my head for too long. 

"I've drained this cup, bled the feeling dry
The lacerations on my mind are proof that I
Am prone to self destruct

The constant pall has drained me in return
But my heart's solution is continuing the burn
So to this feeling I return

'Cause I'm happy when I'm sad
A paradox which is driving me quite mad

I'm at home when I'm alone
Yet loneliness has ever been my foe

Pain's a funny drug that skews the light
It force feeds a mirror that misrepresents your plight
Blinding you to what you should really fight

Has me wondering how my mind works
Does it work at all, or am I just absurd?
Reason's eluding me at every single turn

'Cause I'm happy when I'm sad
A paradox which is driving me quite mad

I'm at home when I'm alone
Yet loneliness has ever been my foe

When I'm all wrong then I'm alright
But eventually I tire of the night

I'm addicted to the tragic
Melancholy's got me tightly in its grip

It's a mystery why tragedy attracts more than victory
It's a selfish me that's so caught up in pain it forgets those around me"

melancholy

"Chasing dreams when I can sleep
'Cause nothing waking feels as concrete
To me

Spend the summer all alone
I've made a home inside my head
A waking dream to live instead

I could fight against my closing eyes
But I've always been a coward
And that won't change tonight

Don't let me fall"

waking dream

"It came from your chest, but it spread to the rest
Slowly choking life from your eyes

A second assault, though courageously fought
We had to say goodbye 

I'm stricken with fear, there's a time drawing near
As my chest is beset with demise

It's as deep as my heart, and it tears me apart
As I await my twelfth of July

Though your body decayed, your heart was arrayed
With riches that words can't describe

All the life left your vessel, but evil couldn't wrestle 
Your heart from remaining purified

Here I remain, though much less in pain
Yet I hardly fight

Evil spreads for the kill, taking over my will
All I can do is heave a sigh
Why don't I even cry for my twelfth of July?

Are you still proud of me, if you can see what I've done?
Do you love me if you see what I've become?

I know you'd still love me, though a wretched, spineless fool
Know you'd still love me, even though you can't say it too"

twelfth of july

"I saw a man floating downstream
Dead in the water, that man was me
Dreamlike it was, and yet not a dream
For there was no waking

My courage lay broken upon my knees
My boldness, my valour nowhere to be seen
My pride that I built like a fair white city
Means nothing to me, as I pass into the Sea

I would have followed you, my brother, my captain, my King"

This track was inspired by a passage in Lord of the Rings, wherein Faramir describes a vision of his brother Boromir floating down the Anduin in his funeral boat. He says "dreamlike it was, and yet no dream, for there was no waking". That line inspired the imagery for this song, although the meaning is entirely different, I hijacked more of Tolkien's dour prose surrounding the tragedy of Boromir to create the lyrics for this one.

dreamlike it was

"Thought I'd killed the cynic
Detrivores proclaimed him dead
But it's far from finished
Oh he's taking back my head

Death lives in his shadow
A companion of carrion
Skeptical of purpose
It is my life he's draining on

You say 'You'll find me
Just trust what you don't know'
But he says 'Faith is no friend
And doubt's your only hope'

Is purpose a facade?
Some deluded masquerade?
Does love even exist?
Or just selfishness thinly veiled?

He says 'You're caught here
Abstraction is all you know'
But you say 'Obedience
Precurses faith and hope'

As long as I'm living in my head
I feed the cynic
He's slowly leading me to death
With skeptical inhibitions
So take a leap of faith
Accept the pull of grace
And don't let him
Destroy you from the inside out

Oh I've been living in my head
I am the cynic
Aimlessly drifting towards death
Full of selfish ambition
If I could take a leap of faith
And lift my eyes up to your face
Then it might
Change me from the inside out"

the cynic

"I'm untethered
But not like a man without fetters
I'm aimlessly drifting
Driven only by wind and the waves
I'm not getting better

I'm detaching 
Further into myself
I'm collapsing
Deeper into this cell
The longer I rot here, the less I'm convinced
That I need to escape

So won't you break me?
Or somehow change me?
Vivisect this dying heart of stone
Transplant it with a living one
Please, save me
If you have to, unmake me
Breaking me down past the marrow and bone
Cleansing me down to the depths of my soul

I'm relapsing
Into destructive patterns
I'm asking 
Myself if I matter
Would the world be better off
If I disappeared?

I've lost passion
I'm listless and senseless
Direction has eluded my grasp
Doing things just 'cause they're done
This is no way to live

So won't you break me? 
Or somehow change me?
Vivisect this dying heart of stone
Transplant it with a living one
Please save me
If you have to, unmake me
Breaking me down past the marrow and bone
Piercing me down to the depths of my soul

All I want is sympathy
But sympathy's not what I need
No, self-pity has deluded me enough
A harsh and violent surgery 
May revive me to reality
And be the remedy to my malady"

untethered

This was the first song I wrote this year, this past January, when I was teaching myself how to play ukulele. I ended up with this chord progression and melody I really liked, and came up with some of these lyrics. Throughout the year, I tried working a few different versions of the song, but as of yet, I haven't had the inspiration to finish any of them.

So, I decided I still wanted to post this song as an ode to 2019, the year of my first songs, in its original form. So this is just a live, acoustic version of a song that may or may not ever become something bigger.

"I feel reluctant to admit that we've grown colder than the snow
A raging fire had been sparked, but now it fails to even glow
What am I doing wrong? The embers once burned hot, but now my hands are clutching ash
In this winter storm, if you have called from home, in your wind the voice was lost

I am the fool who drifted out so lost back into barren cold
Yet I feel a witless victim as the distance seems to grow
The snow is piling high, flurries blind my eyes, frozen fingers grab my neck
In hypothermic state, my wits have dissipated, all I want is rest

Despite my realizations, some sensation keeps me oh so still
Fearing condemnation, but hesitation holds me for the kill
I thought I'd hit my low, and from that day forth, the cold would melt away
But I drifted off from home, I'm once again alone, the fire did not stay"

hypothermic (acoustic)

"If I'm telling the truth
I'm not sure I love you
I'm not sure I love 
Anything but myself

Might not make sense to you
But I feel I've got to prove
That I can live my life for you

You know
You
You know 
It's all that I can do

So you go 
You
You go
And do what I can't do

A half-hearted creature with fake plastic features
I'm not the man I thought I knew
I'm just a shadow
A shadow passing through

It's time to face the facts
There's no such thing as selfless acts
No such things
What is it that I'm trying to do?

You know
You
You know 
It's all that I can do

So you go 
You
You go
And do what I can't...

Do, oh oh oh

So interested in survival
I've torn myself to shreds
As if there's some solution
Just waiting in my head
All it contains is solitude
Isolation and decay
I'm at a loss for self-denial

You go
You
You go
And do what I can't do

'Cause you know
You
You know
It's all that I can do"

This is a song about selfishness and self-interest, and trying to understand the motivations and intentions behind love and living.

all that i can do

Same song, just a re-upload. Wanted to change a couple little things from the previous demo. 

"Solar eclipse, apocalypse
Its dark beneath the sun
Solar eclipse, nightfall affixed
Before the earth has spun
Before the day is done
Before the night’s begun

Solar eclipse, the stars aren’t fixed
Have they fallen to the ground?
Solar eclipse, great dark abyss
In the sky they can’t be found
In the sky no longer housed
The sky has been uncrowned

But you don't own me
And I don't owe you
So why am I staying?
Why am I in the dark?

Solar eclipse, this orbit skips
A hundred thousand days
Solar eclipse, I do predict
Tomorrow as the same
Tomorrow once again
Tomorrow darkness reigns

Solar eclipse, nocturnal fix
Addicted to this shade
Solar eclipse, I am transfixed
It’s made me feel afraid
It’s made me feel detained
It’s made me want to break
Away

But you don't own me
And I don't owe you
So why am I staying?
Why am I in the dark?"

solar eclipse

"Your dead-end eyes make me realize
That there's no surprise beneath the surface
Just the entropy of life and of all purpose

Your blood-stained lips only give me Judas' kisses
Betraying my investments and my interest
In perpetuating this futile existence

Oh Eve, oh, you're really killing me
I do believe, oh, you'll be the death of me

Your listening ear is cold and deaf its clear
There's no parlay against your senseless violence
Caught in the waves of a destructive tyrant

Your whispered words are all turning into curses
Sending me sweet dreams of death and hearses
When I awake I see that all you have is worthless"

Eve comes from the Hebrew חַוָּה which means "life" or "to breathe".

"Who is that staring back through the glass?
Who is that in the pictures on the shelf?
I've been sleeping in a stranger's bed
I've been hiding in somebody else's head

Detach

Whose memories inspired this dream?
Whose memories are making my skin scream?
I've severed now for quite some time
I'm not sure...not sure this body is mine

You aren't free just because you are denying that your prison is there"

Jacob DeBoer

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