She Gave Her All

The Divine Dramedy

last track off this album

https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/purgatorio/purgatorio-30/

Byron

Streetcar Named Ire

One of Us (rough acoustic take)

Lyrics

No amends, I’m gonna get my rightful dividends
Make new friends, the kind who won’t ever die
There’s no demand can change what I’ve planned because I
Cannot stand to stand by

I’m gonna fly to Maracaibo
Quit the pleading and the yearning
Because I am not returning, no
Instead of asking why would I go
Ask why staying here I can’t bear
Maracaibo, I’ll be there

I’ll be brief: you’ll find me chewing on a lotus leaf
No more grief, year after blissful year, here
Though I desert, know this assertion’s sincere:
It just hurt to be here.

I’m gonna fly to Maracaibo
I have never gotten jack here
So I’m never coming back here, no
Don’t cry that I’m in Maracaibo
Cry for everything blue and black
So goodbye beaux,
‘Cause I’m never coming back

The end of history
It will never come
But I hear the macaws in Caracas fly free
I’m gonna watch ’til I’m numb

I’m gonna fly to Maracaibo
When the devil comes to greet me
You can tell him that he beat me, oh
Maracaibo
That’s where I go

There's no such thing as justice
No such thing as fate
My biggest problem from now ’til I’m dust
Will be finding a way across the strait

I’m gonna fly to Maracaibo
When they come with chains to yoke me
You can tell them that they broke me, hey
Far simpler hating me when I go
Than hating all of what made me roam
As well I know
You should try though
‘Cause I’m never coming home

Maracaibo

The Making of Ultomato

The Years Stood Still (rough acoustic take)

One of the songs I am submitting to the Tri-C High School Rockoff!

Bucket Of Crabs

One of the songs I'm submitting to the High School Rockoff.

Kaleidoscope

Lyrics:

While most who cry and pray until their dying day
Would feel better in the dark,
My eyes and hair they seethe with all the air I breathe,
Verbal rhetoric, a spark.

But I guess I'd say that it's best this way,
Tightly shutting all the doors.
After all, I'll find no better mind than yours.
But the day is cool and bright.
Will I be a fool some night
Wondering what I waited for?

We decided on Pentecost.
If it talked, my mantilla'd say Lent is lost.
One more day that I've tossed.
It's so easy to forget that time runs out.
Ever turning roundabout,
While my doubts fend off the cross.

In love and loss it's fair to drop the cross you bear
And be seated by the side.
One word you spoke so sweet, and then this yoke so sweet
Was defeated, I untied.

But I guess I'd say that it's best this way,
Draw the sash and pull the shades.
After all, hopes falter and the altar fades.
Will I someday change my mind
And discover I'm confined
To a piece in your crusades?

Metalanguage at its best follows all its subject's rules.
From your armchair, take a rest, for we've been played for fools.
I've been searching for the dark in the absence of the light.
But the dark's defined by what it's not;
Without light, it's but a thought, but maybe that's all right.

And I guess I'd say that it's best this way,
Leaving past pursuits behind.
May these stacks I make stay in my wake aligned.
What a silly pipe dream, that,
For I know I'll knock them flat
Just to get some peace of mind.

Philosophical Investigations

Pentecost

Lyrics:

All day long, I build song.
I'm afraid my solutions are quite thin, are quite thin.
Still this tome is searching for a home,
Waiting and hoping this closed set will open and let me in.

Every day I pray that I'll write something beautiful,
Just to know I threw something new to the day.
But amid these words so blinding,
There is nothing new to say.

I try hard, on my guard
For the figments that slip into my head, into my head.
Work all day, then throw it all away.
All my pretensions are mere field extensions of what I've read.

If I only could, then I'd write something beautiful,
Ancient, deep, and true, but still new anyway.
But every day I'm finding there is nothing new to say.

What can I say about you no one's ever said?
Your magnificence drives me to that ambition.
You bring me suffering, you leave me bleeding red
Like a hackneyed metaphor drains life from the great tradition.

I'll write something beautiful,
Just to know I threw something new right your way.
I was born with dismal timing; there is nothing new to say.
But if I only could, then I'd write something beautiful,
Ancient, deep, and true, but still new anyway.
Time, your pyramids are climbing,
There is nothing new to say.

Pyramids

First lost, then found, for your splendor gave me eyes.
Both seeing how far I am going and not knowing I despise.
You understand that I do it to myself.
I hope you'll stay ever divergent, my insurgent Black Guelph.

For as long as the world will turn,
If you ask for a fire, I'll burn.
And if you need sails, you can stretch my skin.
For as long as the world will spin.

You tapped, I turned; at your pleasure, ever fair.
I cognize you as a projection, just one section of what's there.
You are the form and the function both in one.
As I show my face, you regard me, then you are me now I'm done.

With you, I am the best I've been; I always sought to heed you.
I cannot say how blessed I've been that you have let me lead you.

I will carry you on for as long as the world will spin.

For as Long as the World Will Spin

I've decided to lean into tracks that are Me. So, singer-songwriter pop it is, with an edge of weird. Here's the first track off the eponymous album.

Partially inspired by "Big Blonde" by Dorothy Parker.

Lyrics:

Rough night, blaring alarms.
Mama pillbox, throw open your arms.
For once I wish you'd help me find myself.
They keep telling me to mind myself.

I tripped over a word.
I'm fine--don't be absurd.
The man of legends is my only hope.
Jorge, I am your last lonely hope.
But you've got nothing to fear--'cause I'm always here.

The times around me quicken
I'm sick, you're sick, we sicken.

One day I'll fall.
They'll say, "She gave her all."
Then will they haul me up and drag me home to you.
One day I'll fall.
They'll say, "She gave her all."
What will they call me when I only stall?
One day I'll fall.

He walks into my dreams.
He talks me out of the screams.
Tell me it's the way of all the brilliances.
Only they know what resilience is.

He's got more stories to tell.
He ought to get the Nobel.
He wants to take me to the Trinity.
Jorge, tell me of infinity.
I've got nothing to fear--'cause you're always here.

My greatest fear is I'm a person, just a person.
They all see things clear, I just worsen.

One day I'll fall.
They'll say, "She gave her all."
Then will they haul these bones and drag me,
Wall me up and tag me.
"How banal! Here in the slag she looks just like us."

Jorge, tell me I'm an artist too.
Jorge, tell me I am just like you.

this too shall pass

Lyrics:

When you are trapped inside a palace,
You can forget you're trapped at all.
I may be full of rage and malice, as it were,
Alice: it's still her I call.

I tell her, "I want to jump out of my skin."
To let it out, whatever's in.
Come hold me up, the akathisia
Has made me like I've never been.

I hit my hands until they callus,
I talk to her and lie awake.
I'd rather die than go to Dallas on that flight.
Alice, in the night I break.

I can't sit still one moment longer.

Akathisia (Alice)

I am not the only woman you've ever broken.
Though looking back it's so hazy,
I have learned to keep my distance and bide my time,
Lest I come on too strong.
I didn't think that I left anything there unspoken.
I know you told me I'm crazy.
But someday soon is the day I begin the climb.
Then you'll know I'm not wrong.

Why aren't I the one your memory adores
When the inside of my head was always yours?

Even though I have been happily two years sober,
This makes me long for a whiskey.
Maybe then I'd have the courage to speak my mind.
I'd just show up and talk.
This waiting game is not well-suited to manic spirits.
I tend to lean to the risky.
My time has passed, and now I find myself behind:
Several years on the clock.

I belong to you.
I've always belonged to you.

This head of mine has cost me all of my friends already,
Except for Dunhills and keyboards.
The lithium has made me curse the day I was born.
About my head you were right.
This head of mine: it is yours, now come set it steady,
Lest I come out to the seaboard.
Come to me--I will throw out the path I've sworn.
I won't put up a fight.

I've kept the promise I made me.
It's only you who has swayed me.

Lithium

lyrics:

All the songs I ever wrote about it I now renounce.
Back online and back on board with it, and this time it counts.
I've always measured time in slices:
If we talked or all the splices, separate ways.
But now it's the end of days.

I'm coming for you in a handcar--get ready to ride.
I will not take no for an answer, stay at my side.
I'll put an end to the meaning you can't see.
I'll be there. Come kick it with me.

You were put into this world so I could give you your due.
I've got years to make up what I missed in these last 22.
Laura will someday be forgotten.
Even Beatrice will rot and turn to dust.
But in you, my muse, I trust.

What a world we'll build for us.
With me: won't the world be thrilled for us?
Kick it with me: I will not be dissuaded.
Someday soon, we will have made it.
I'll take the Rhodes, you take the wurly.
And although I know it's early, still I swear:
You will be a millionaire.

Handcar

Lyrics:

There is a cipher to the code.
Those who scoff at meaning haven’t dared to lean into the fall.
A heart so full it overflowed
Set the earth to turning, set my soul discerning for the call.
And I'll find it, I'll find it.

That’s how I know I exist.
It’s the eyes of my Beatrice, I see it.
Every objection dismissed,
And I say, “Here I am,”
I say, “Here I am.”
That’s how I know I exist.

I've got to find someone like me
So I can understand it.
But I can’t, so empty-handed, I retain
My one-sourced anthropology
Till I find the model
I can spoil and coddle and explain.
And I'll find it, I'll find it.

That’s how I know I exist.
I’m entailed by my Beatrice, I know it.
A logic I cannot resist.
So I say, “Here I am,”
My love, “Here I am.”
That’s how I know I exist.

That’s how I engage with the world
And I know it’s a shame, but I can’t help it
Into the void I’ve been hurled
Many times, so many times,
But still I persist.
In somebody else I subsist.
I tell you,
That’s how I know I exist.

Beatrice

Thursday

This song took me years to write.

Lyrics:
It's the same story today
And your eyes are ocean-grey, Pauline.
Everything peaceful and serene.
And you keep the dark at bay, Pauline.
Your steps are long and sure,
So flawlessly secure, Pauline.
Everything cool and calm and clean.
Tell me what I have to say, Pauline.
When will you come back home to stay, Pauline?

(I'd do anything.)

We must've known each other somehow--darling.
But I won't say just where it was from.
Maybe I'll tell you, a long time from now,
Just how we knew each other somehow in the world to come.

I know I shouldn't stare
At the colors in your hair, Pauline.
Black, white, and everything between.
See, your sweater has a tear, Pauline.
Let me just fix that there.
Tell me, what more can I give?
Is this how I'll have to live, Pauline?
I'm tired of you asking what I mean.
I'm a footnote in your poem, Pauline.
I know I'll never be your home.

(No more walking, you're too brisk, Pauline.
Let me watch you throw the disc, Pauline.)

There's a rumor in your eyes,
And it speaks of pain you've never known.
Pain that I used to call my own.
Pain that binds you so you must relive.
Five foot body through one inch sieve.
So I'm knocking, let me in.
I'll sit and watch you drink your gin, Pauline.
All of the awful suffering,
All the chaos, all the fear, the risk
Disappear when you throw that disc, Pauline.

How much longer must it be, Pauline?
When will you come back home to me, Pauline?

Pauline

Lyrics:

From my youthful indiscretions, I like to think I learned my lessons.
Took it all in stride, worked so hard to hide my sins.
Far too clever those around me; within days they always found me.
Sober and steady always already wins.

When the light was streaming in on me, all of that stopped.
Then, again, the enemy, the other shoe dropped.
To be a walking scandal these days I can’t handle.
I have paid my toll--I’m breaking my parole.

I can't do this no more.

By the flame sometimes I linger, just enough to burn my finger.
Duty weighs like bricks, gotta get my kicks somehow.
Fight little proxy wars.
Days are boring for the pious, so I play at being Thaïs.
But I just flirt--I’m not gonna hurt no one now. 
Well, at least not one of yours. Not anymore.

The light was streaming in on me, then they turned and said
“Go back to someplace warmer,” and they left me for dead.
Really, who could blame them? How I used to shame them.
But I’ve rebuilt what I stole--I’m breaking my parole.

I answered each resounding demand.
I turned my life around with a wave of my hand--
So it seemed; in reality, how it burned and harrowed my soul.
I have paid my toll; I’m breaking my parole.

I’m not sure if this digression counts as charge or as confession.
I cannot outrun everything I’ve done and said.
God knows I’ve transgressed.
The only way to overcome it is to let go and let it plummet.
At least then I’ll know it’s not hanging overhead. 
Finally at rest.

When the light was streaming in on me, I held the key.
How can I go back to that depraved scrutiny?
I’m not built to pander; can I face with candor
Every piece of slander, every pitiful straw poll?
Can I face with humor every vicious rumor?
Either rage and fume or else maintain control.
It’s been years since I climbed out the hole.
Did my time raking coals, now I’m breaking my parole.

Maidenwhore

Confession

Lead single off INTERESTING QUESTION.

For some reason one of the MIDI basses is acting up, so, hope it's not too distracting.

Lyrics:
I’m tired of breathing out of spite. I need a new cause to cheer.
Must get the void out of my sight. Speak of the Devil and he’ll appear.
Not hating wrong, but loving right. 
So tell the one who knows it all to meet me here.

’Til the end of days I thought I would burn.
But I’ll change my ways; I know I could learn.
I’ll meet that righteous gaze, I’ll fall in line and turn.
Now I know my journey’s back on track, and fast
At last.

I’m tired of waiting every night, but how do I break the curse?
They say talk through it, fight the fight. 
Such empty platitudes just make it worse.
If I just try with all my might,
I’ll throw that all away and flip to a new verse.

I too will turn my back to the flames.
I too will turn my back to the flames.
Put me down there on your list of names.
I too will turn my back to the flames.
I too will turn my back to the flames.

I’m tired of zipping it up tight, you’ve gotta know.

’Til the end of time I thought I would rage.
Won't it be sublime to just disengage?
Now I’m thinking I’m about to turn the page.
Now I know my journey’s back on track, and fast
At last.

those who love them

back to the flames

Interesting Question

Go the Distance

The Direction of Time

Medea

I am a novelty pianist/keyboardist based out of Pittsburgh, PA.

I compose for musical theater, rock/jazz soundtrack, and orchestra/chamber.

Virgil

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks