A Country waltz by an eastern suburbanite with two left feet. To S., with deep affection and regret 

It was at a big dance where the lonely would gather to mingle
And she looked pretty much like the rest, but I saw very well
That it hadn’t been anyone’s choice that brought her there single,
And I knew ‘cause I had that exact same sad story to tell.

She’s a lockbox of memories, dusty a bit but untarnished,
And it holds things that dwellers in Splitsville cannot understand.
It’s exquisitely worked, it’s been polished by tears but unvarnished,
And she curtseys and rises to meet me as I take her hand

And we waltz across starfields and nebulae stretching for lightyears,
Over prairies so endless they make Texas look lie a park.
With the power of semi trucks hauling full trailers in high gears
And the passion of fireflies blinking their Morse in the dark.
* * *
Now the dance halls are closed and the schoolmarms all say keep your distance,
And fires are lighting the cities that lie on the way,
But I’m driving a dream to her door and it meets no resistance,
And I’ll waltz with the widow all night till the coming of day.

Waltz with the Widow

My tribute to the Getz/Gilberto albums of the early 60s. And thanks to Francisca Rigaud-Sharman https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcT9dzWy2TNGA1-YLjmeX-Q
for helping with the Portuguese!

She's the sweetheart of the rodeo
But doesn't know what it means to be in love.
She told her admirers all to go,
And some needed more than just a little shove.
She's my joy and my pain, my prize I can't gain
How strange we remain naked hand
And an empty glove.
She's the sweetheart of the rodeo
But how do I go
And make her my love?
 
Adeus beleza (goodby beauty)
Bom dia, tristeza (hello, sadness)
 
She's the singer of a lonely heart
But to her, love has always been a snare.
A game of two souls that remain apart
And leads to a fall much worse than one from a stair.
She's a riddle in Greek, an unclimbable peak
Yet her silences speak to one
Who has been there.
She's the singer of a lonely heart
But how do I start
To show her I care?

Bom Dia, Tristeza (Hello, Sadness)

Seeking Someone Seeking

My version, for two Irish whistles, guitar, and accordion.
The “Londonderry Air” first saw print in 1855, in a collection from the “Society for the Preservation and Publication of Ancient Irish Music.” The “Danny Boy” words were added later – by an Englishman! -- in 1926. Both tune and lyrics are hence firmly and unalterably in the public domain safe from even the most well-funded efforts at copyright extension by the likes of the Wokey Mouse Club and Sonny Bono’s widow Cui.
My long-term listeners may be surprised (hopefully pleasantly) that I would do something like this. But really, it is one of the finest and most exquisite melodies anywhere, even if the smart-ass brat who still lives inside me can’t resist transmogrifying the title into a song of praise for the ladies of the evening of the British capitol: London Derrière!

Londonderry Air (Danny Boy)

For Marina Cgramont.
A word to my fellow English speakers on the title. For not only is the dedicatee Spanish, there’s a problem common to translation here. ‘Caballero’ is certainly ‘knight.’ But it is also ‘gentleman’, and in its least derived meaning, ‘horseman.’ In fact, there are only two languages, to my knowledge, that name their ‘knightly’ class after its service (to a feudal lord) rather than its horsemanship – English and Japanese! Now ‘caballera’ would take that whole complex of meanings and transfer it to the feminine – but that is NOT a transfer that Spanish makes! Still, to tweak a word ending for poetic effect is far different than using Newspeak to ram your worldview down the throat of humanity!
Even ‘desdichado’ has problems. It means both ‘unhappy’ and ‘misfortunate.’ Related concepts, surely, but one English word? And so my title remains in Spanish and I invite you to come enjoy the music -- which is instrumental in any case. Mi casa su casa!

La Caballera Desdichada

An old carol, one of my favorites! MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

The First Noël

My instrumental rendition of nearly everybody's favorite Gospel hymn. I know all too well where I myself would be without that Grace!

Amazing Grace

Or see the video version here: https://youtu.be/QJkU8Ah-DxY
“Erecting a chart,” I must say to my young computer-wise everything-else-ignorant listeners, was in the former times no easy task. Start, as now, with the time and place of birth, but first it must be mathematically deconstructed from the falsehoods of “railroad time” and converted to true local noon. This sets the 12 numbered Houses of the zodiac, and gives the familiar sun sign but also the Rising Sign, which changes every hour or so. Where were the planets? For that we must go to the tables of the “deutsche Ephemerides” and adjust their positions, a process not for the short of attention span or mathematically challenged, to our exact time and desired longitude. And here we will also, depending on our skill and conscientiousness, adjust the House sizes to reflect our Latitude as well.
So now we have the placement of our Planets in their Houses. But are they direct or retrograde? And they stand in differing relationships to each other: conjunction, opposition, trine, square...A particularly unfortunate position is said to be “afflicted.” We will pass over astrological esoterica like the Arabian Points. And now with chart in hand, what does it all mean? THAT calls for wisdom! And in the end...sometimes one can only respond as Kipling’s Astrologer here!

Unto whose use the pregnant suns are poised,
With idiot moons and stars retracting stars?
Creep thou betweene – thy coming’s all unnoised
(Heaven hath her high as Earth her baser wars)
Heir to these tumults, this affright, that fray,
By Adam’s father’s own sin bound alway,
Peer up! Draw out thy horoscope and say
Which planet mends thy threadbare fate, or mars!

Unto Whose Use (Rudyard Kipling)

This is based on what I've learned from the organ works of the French avant-garde composer Messiaen -- who was once such a prisoner himself. Political prisoners, of course, are never called such by the governments holding them. Still, there are infallible ways to tell. But for more on this topic I must send you to the video version here: 
https://rumble.com/v1kv785-our-lady-of-political-prisoners.html

Our Lady of Political Prisoners

One of my all-time favorites and one of the tracks that did so much to cement the Bossa Nova into the North American consciousness. No infringement of copyright is here intended, and the work is not posted for any financial gain. Instruments and arrangement, of course, are my own.

Manha de Carnaval (Luiz Bonfa)

The fair-haired daughter of Demeter has been kidnapped by the dour Lord of Tartarus, Hades, later called by the Romans Dis. And indeed the name fits: as in Dis-appointed, Dis-consolate, Dis-heartened, Dis-harmonious, and even Dis-peptic! Those of us who knew and loved her raise our lament to All-Father Zeus: and at last, feeling merciful (or merely annoyed by our continual yammering) sends Hermes to bring her back. I tag along. The commands of Zeus are not to be gainsaid, but alas, our fair Persephone has eaten some pomegranate seeds and must spend part of the year in Hell. She follows us back to the upper world of sunlight and connectedness and joy, however alloyed they may sometimes be. Here is where Orpheus fouled up, but I have the benefit of the immortal advice of Satchel Paige: "Never look back. Somethin' might be gainin' on ya."

Persephone

All right, I can hear you saying, what kind of a lunatic does a title-mashup of Pat Boone and Arthur C. Clarke? But there's a method to my madness. Beneath the synthsounds and polytonality (sometimes WAY beneath) is a fairly conventional chordal and rhythmic structure. How better to capture both sides of the piece? Cognitive dissonance? Of course! But what segment of our lives is free of THAT these days? Certainly my cover art has drunk the Kool-Aid!
Finally, the piece is dedicated to a lady whose room has become her space capsule on a planet turned hostile and alien.
'Gear' heads will note the addition of Korg's volca drum and micro modular synthesizer to my musical instrumentarium.
But could such letters ever exist one day in a form more 'actual' than my literary/musical/romantic trope? "Devoutly to be wished," in Tom Paine's phrase, and yet I find it in the highest degree improbable. Acolytes of a certain eccentric multibillionaire will doubtless disagree with me, but I say, to mangle a phrase from a place on Earth considerably warmer than the Fourth Planet, "Hush, you Muskies!"

Love Letters in the Sands of Mars

Heraldry -- it is one of its continuing attractions in the modern day -- speaks a secret language, a code of color-names used nowhere else; of words for postures and positions that, if they ever had a meaning in the wider world, have long since lost it; of distinctions which are made nowhere else. And so it is with Dragons. The Dragon heraldically (and perhaps also cryptoherpetologically) is a very specific beast, with wings and four legs. If it has only two, it is a Wyvern. And if none -- the archetypical flying serpent -- it is an Amphiptère.
Whatever their conformation, dragons are notoriously lustful after young human females. Dare i suggest -- with so much Myth and Art against me -- that sometimes at least the attraction is reciprocated? After all, I've known women -- even among the more beautiful -- whose current choice of lover could only be described as "reptilian!" Perhaps our dragon-slayers -- all men, with the exception of St. Margaret -- were not so much protecting fair womanhood as eliminating the competition!
Be that as it may, it is an interesting couple I have brought before you today!

la Demoiselle et l'Amphiptère

One of my favorite bossa nova tunes! Once again, I channel not only Charlie Byrd but Henry Mancini. All copyrights remain with their owners and the work is not posted for any financial gain. However, the guitar and string arrangements are my own.

Wave (Jobim)

Eva's page: https://soundcloud.com/user-181769456
For all who may have thought i was not sufficiently strange on my own!
See the video page here. You will find it no offhand afterthought! https://youtu.be/hG__JE2YSEI

Atom&eva

Another collab with the redoubtable Eva. Lucidity in the Sky With Diamonds!

Chasing Towards It

The Valiha, as might be gathered by anyone with interests beyond the bounds of unionized education, is a Malagasy rhythm instrument. I found it by chance, bought it because I liked the look of it, and play it according to my own ideas without the least knowledge of how such things are done in its home country. Hope you all enjoy it!

Valiha

I came of musical age during the Folk Revival of the early 60's. It was -- to say no more, because even this is in some respects already too much -- far from the worst time in which to be young. I'm not trying to bring back the dead: but this is a theme, and a treatment of it by an ensemble of unusual acoustic instruments (read their names in the additional tags) which would not have seemed out of place back then. But nor is it now.

She's a princess in exile, wants to bring me my joe,
I really can't see her as waitress, oh no,
There's a gleam in her eye and a tilt of her head,
Makes you know she was once rather different, instead.
Cause dreams don't die easy, and memories don't fade,
But all her princes have reasons they can't come to her aid,
And the minstrels are palsied, and the poets struck dumb.
There's no help for a princess in needs of a crumb.

She's a princess of music, and she can't find a fit
Between a soul that's too full, and a job that ain't shit.
And the arts, just like Ireland, have this renown
Of high praise from the children they've starved out of town
Where's the goal for her eye, where's the task for her hand?
But there's no help for princesses chased from the land
And no way to turn past triumphs to present gains,
So a princess in exile she is, and remains.
A princess in exile in the heart of the plains.

Princess in Exile

[cover art by Rumanian surrealist Adrian Borda]
Another collaboration with the talented Eva Lucidity (find her here:)
Prinzess_Dye@Eva_Lucidity@Cloudsgrey_Valiant
 https://soundcloud.com/user-181769456
Again, I add to a basic (not TOO basic) track of hers with various elaborations of third-world percussion, the jazz organ traditions of my hometown Philly, and somewhat more avant-garde tenor sax explorations. The meaning of our symbolic (and before the end Zildjian cymbal-ic) title is so carefully concealed we can no longer find it ourselves. So just enjoy, it's not like any latter-day Daniel explicating the mystery would be rewarded in decryptocurrency!

Symbol Three Feet

Sólo el gato
Apareció completo
Y orgulloso:
Nació completamente terminado,
Camina solo y sabe lo que quiere. -- Pablo Neruda

Solo el Gato

Oh, the difference between "the woman of my dreams" and the women of my dreams! But the evanescent ladies have none the less made their tracks in my memory. Or as I put it in a poem some years ago:
In my dreams I kiss the princess,
And dream, in hers, I'm kissed.
She gives her scarf for token,
But when I wake, it's missed.
And daylight always spoils the fun
Before we come to tryst.

Dream Maiden

I head south of the border, where my thoughts ever stray...
And see my video here.  ¡No será decepcionado!
https://youtu.be/efnlFarHurQ

Quierida

Part III, the Mad Knight of Taubenburg......and see the video version here https://youtu.be/cH8c93YgQkg
One cannot blame the ladies overmuch; for a madman, especially one of such a threadbare competency, is no prize. But he knows, from a place deep within his soul beyond both madness and sanity, that the fault is not entirely his. The seemingly immutable natural order of things has been upended, the flood has swept all before it, and even the damsels in distress no longer react as was their wont. He would be better off, even financially, with the Freudenmädchen: but our Knight is a Lover in search of Love, and that in itself is a sufficiently dangerous madness regardless of his other quirks and infirmities.
The piece is based on an old sailors’ song instantly recognizable to any who have seen Jaws: but in this iteration of reality the ship has gone to Rio instead of Spain, and the tune has altered somewhat. The astute listener will notice a reversal of who is saying goodbye; to which the Composer will only reply, It was intentional. Said listener (I pray I have such) may also observe no little melancholy in the adieux, for our Knight has many charming qualities not to be found in the politically correct or well adjusted. Alas, like spices, they make the meal but one cannot live on them.

The Ladies Bid Their Adieux

Intermezzo: The Mad Knight of Taubenburg
Do I stray from my purpose here? No, for Madness casts its nets far, and the conscientious Chronicler must be prepared to follow them. We should imagine our Knight sitting down and writing a letter with all his thoughts, sorrows, and longings; then sealing it in a bottle and throwing it into the Danube. After many years – perhaps centuries –  it washes up on a beach in Japan, where it is found by the daughter of an eminent samurai. Beautiful, fearless, mistress of the martial arts, her hand sought by all the rich and powerful, she is intelligent and inquisitive far beyond what her culture will accept for her sex – and indeed, hardly tolerates in her father’s. Wrapped in an isolation of a totally different sort, she will not rest until she has deciphered the message. But what will she make of it? For between her and the Knight is not only the barely traversible barrier of Distance but the impassible one of Years
for Sachiko Musashi

the Samurai's Daughter

H.G.Wells was definitely a man with his finger on the Zeitgeist. Consider how many of his stories are not only universally known, but have become free-floating multivalent metaphors for so much in modern life. Like this rocker of mine, for one!. And yes, I know Queen visited this territory (though I didn’t when I started the project, BION) but:
1) that just shows what I said about the power of Wells’ work,
2) whoever their man “is” he doesn’t appear to have anything except invisibility in common with mine, and
3) it was 31 years ago. Isn’t there a Statute of Limitations on this kind of thing?
So crank up the volume, because he is not Inaudible!
LYRICS:
I was here, and you spoke with me not in the least paranoid.
Now it’s clear, I’ve become one you don’t even try to avoid.
It’s too near that old horror show, H.G.’s throw, 
S!till good to go, by the night owls enjoyed.
I’m the Invisible Man!

We had nights writ in letters of fire in the book of my days.
We saw sights even angels desire to look on with praise.
By all rights, there’d be one last kiss, none like this,
Farewell to bliss, but your silent eyes glaze.
I’m the Invisible Man!

Following the usual progressions
Gets me no kind of concessions

Have I changed? Caught some leprosy, third degree, 
Look at me, try and see, open your eyes if you can.
I’m the Invisible Man!

Invisible Man (I Was Here)

This is not twelve-tone music, not by a long stretch, although I did use every note of the chromatic scale and gave them more equal billing than is usual in any music not grown in an academic hothouse. But it gave me the lady's name, so...and if you want to see the (suitably insane) video version, go here:
https://youtu.be/behzb8bqxG8
Dodeca --
Past the hate and the lies
and the partisan bias,
slaves thinking they’re free,
you’ll be waiting for me
and I’ll find you,
Dodeca

Dodeca --
You’re not what you seem
you’re more than a dream
you’re a little extreme
the Queen of Elfland
and the Empress of Ice Cream

And like some princess of fable
you’re one who is able
to lift up my soul
get me out of this hole,
set my heart on a roll
and become my goal.
There, I’ve laid all my cards on the table,
for you
and only for you,
Dodeca –

You will know me by sight
and I’ll know that you’re right,
like I turn on the light
and “I see” not “I might.”
We’ll go slow at the start
‘cause past hurts made us smart
but you’ll give me your heart
and get mine in exchange.
That’s not subject to change.

Things will be as they were,
or were said to occur,
I’m your him, you’re my her
and it won’t cause a stir

if we splice our two ways
if we join our two stays
Eyes meet, gaze to gaze,
through the glaze
of the haze
of the craze
of these days
in the maze
and we see it all through,
you for me, I for you,
till the old-fashioned end.
Tell me friend,
when will my fortunes mend
and I find you,
Dodeca?

Dodeca

Can I get any more roots than this?

Well you left me here a-standin', and I don't have much to say.
Yeah you left me here a-standin', and I don't have much to say.
'Cause when I ask what you're demandin', you just tell me go away.

You were the cherry on my cupcake, the apple of my eye.
You were the hot sauce at my clambake, and my sunny clear blue sky.
You done took all that you can take, and now you wanna say goodby.

Honey give me one good reason you're so determined to refuse.
It's just the wrong damn season for these Woman Left Me Blues.

Won't you tell me straight to my face what I done that you can't excuse 
('cause y'ain't always played by the rule book yourself, honey)
Don't leave me with a sad case of these Woman Left Me Blues.

Have you found some other stand-in, take my part in your bad-ass play?
Have you called the wedding band in? (Lord, he gon' rue that day!)
'Cause when I ask what you're demandin'
And you know I ain't grandstandin'
Just tryin' to get some understandin', and you tell me go away.

Woman Left Me Blues

A solid straight-ahead rocker! Still, I wish it weren’t necessary to write a song like this. But if not me, who? And if not now, when? And if you want to see a video version, go here! https://youtu.be/DGcLlgAIDG8
Don’t tell me what I can’t say
Don’t tell me what I gotta play
Don’t tell me you’re the only way
Don’t wave a gun in my face
Say you own the place, see all by race
I’m from the old school
I don’t believe in mob rule
You’re doin’ stuff that ain’t cool
You’d better stop it now.
You know that tale about the fishwife
She didn’t even have a dish knifw
She started livin’ in her wish life
The magic fish said no can do
Too much, shame on you, now you’re through
Yeah she was cruisin’
She wasn’t thinkin’ ‘bout a bruisin’
And yet she wound up big-time losin’
Too fast to even wonder how.
* * * * * * 
Don’t tell me what I can’t say
Don’t tell me what I gotta play
Don’t tell me you’re the only way
Don’t wave a gun in my face
Say you own the place, then trash your space
From what you’re choosin’
Those who support you must be boozin’
And you could wind up big-time losin’
Too fast to even wonder how
Why do you make in so confusin’?
You’d better stop it now.

Don't Tell Me What I Can't Say!

Selene

A few judiciously chosen words and sweet music on certain aspects of modern life. Quote near the end is from Winston Churchill

* the L Word

The Artist is a former Road Scholar and graduate of the School of Hard Knox. He also studied at the now-defunct Liebessommer-Institut in San Francisco. His musical influences are many: among them J.S. Bach, Morton Subotnick, and Spike Jones! Not one to let stylistic grass grow under his feet, he has seen a lot of changes in his life but will never cancel his subscription to the Resurrection, surrender to the dark side, or look back once he has put his hand to the plow!

Wynn Schaible

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