panic writing 5 minutes before the skirmish deadline. So yeah, I don't do time limits, apparently. 

MEAT MARKET

My 9th song for FAWM2014, written on GarageBand for iPhone, vocals recorded in Reaper. 
@zeroshift - vocals, programming

The three 'verses' are snippets of dreams I've had recently. Also I pronounced water in a weird way. :-\ 

Hello? I remember waking up in a hospital room where the wallpaper started peeling off, and I remember thinking 'how cliche'. I got out of bed, walked to the window and looked outside, and saw the most beautiful city ..skyscrapers overlooking a lake.vibrant greens and blues, pristine white walls and flocks of doves flying across the skyline.  I tried climbing out the window and realised I was naked and a hundred feet up. I hung on to an overhanging beam, and was too scared to take the jump. I tried to turn around to get back into the room, but the window had moved further away from me. 

 
In these dreams when I sleep
I live lives I've forgotten 


I also remember being on an island. No other people but me. I tried swimming away a couple of times but kept arriving back at the same island. There was literally nothing else out in the water. There was only the island. The island provided and the island protected. There was no purpose without it. I walked for a day, and as the sun set I saw a hundred points of light converging onto a spot on the ground. 


In these dreams when I sleep
I live lives I've forgotten
When the world slips away
And the night swallows my mind 



My brother and I went to a concert hall where  I could hear a girl stood on stage singing a song, repeating the line 'I remember the day I could see words', a tribute to the brother she'd lost. 




The Sinking Side

My 10th FAWM track, written with the bass player from my band, Dr Lewis. He mentioned Stone Gossard once while we were writing and that suddenly breathed the idea into the song you hear here. Excuse the terrible hissing, we weren't using the best mic and AI for acoustic work. 

@zeroshift - vocals
Dr. Lewis - guitar 


Page of cups, you've got tired eyes
Better swim back home, before the moon arrives
It looks as though everything i thought tonight was wrong

When the words run out I can see it all
I can bore myself, but why someone else? 
It seems to me, the more I learn the less the things I know

I knew i'd feel like this but i did it anyway
If anything won't break, there was nothing there to begin

If i seize the day, will I grip too hard?
Is the game over, am i out of lives? 
I'd start again, but something tells me time is running out

I knew I'd feel like this but I did it anyway
If anything won't break, there was nothing there to begin

Cards down, dice out: let's begin
Before the moment gets to me
Gets the best of me

Far away from the maddening crowd
When the vacuum fades, and these lives depart
I can't forget, but I can't remember what I said

I knew I'd feel like this but I did it anyway
If anything won't break, there was nothing there to begin


Dropping The Shield

second revisit of the day - This originally started as a distorted electric guitar track, then an acoustic set mainstay when I was in Standalone - written in 2005. 

Silver

3rd revisited track - one I wrote while in Standalone.

It gets impossible, you can't take it all in at once 
Find beauty in everyting, be grateful for all that you have 
Drift through the endless days of gray, all fade to one 
Keep looking for meaning to come, all the muses will point you towards 

Wish on a falling star for change to come 
Live for the moment 
Be the Alpha & Omega 
A heart that's full has to be empty again 
Before it continues 
Between the Alpha & Omega 
Between the Alpha & Omega. 

You'll watch the empires burning down around your ears 
Keep running from all the things in life that bring you fear 
You've got to find more broken pieces to fit in you 
Your pleasure is your pain- what gives you strength will kill you in the end. 


Alpha And Omega

Just me, pressing buttons cos I'm on a break. 

Cheating Sunday

Another song I'd written but never recorded, this one always resonated over the years and was always on loop in my skull. It's only 3 chords, but that's possibly why it stuck in my head. 

It's 3AM and I'm wondering why I can't sleep
While the world revolves outside
You dream oblivious to the silent screams, the things I hear inside
Somnambulist, pointing a gun against his head
So if you don't think there's a chance for him,
Can you step right in and pull the trigger?
 
Is it something I should tell you?
Or do you already know?
Are the signs you give misread, or am I just being slow?
 
A promise etched in stone has been eroded by the fickle winds of fate
Didn't want to form these ties, I should simplify, and cut straight to the chase
Irrational, going against my common sense
Ignoring the voices in my head telling me that she's just a girl; just another girl...
 
Is it too late to start over
and pretend we never met? 
Don't wish for something you can't have
Don't wish for something you'll regret
 
Sure I'll ask you to come inside
Sit down and we can talk a while
I'll show you all the secrets I have drowned
She said she's never coming down
Pull off your new shoes
Don't remember what was said
Pointing a gun against his head
He's pointing a gun against his head.

Another song I haven't played for years: this was a mainstay when I was in an acoustic duo. 

I'm a liar 
An opportunist 
I blow the chances that I get 
I'm the fire 
that burns your house down 
Don't think I don't hear what you say 

Can you tell what 
i've been drinking now? 
I don't want to fight you anymore 
Can you tell where 
I've been hurting now 
I don't want to fuck you anymore 

You're the wire 
that i've been walking 
no safety net 
to save my fall 
I get tired 
your wrists start aching 
we'd kill ourselves just to be seen 

we are losing control of everything 
wait til i get my hands on you 

blood on your picture

Fight You

Another old old song from my days in Standalone - it's missing something without the lead guitar over it, sadly, but I thought it'd be worth airing it again. 

It hit me 
in the head 
empty bottles under my bed 
I wish the room would stop spinning 
I'm fighting the drugs but they're winning 

It gets hard 
to let go 
haven't felt like this since Tokyo 
Promise one day that I'd wake up 
And realise that I'm just fucked up 

129192 
still inside a room with no door and no view 
nothing left for me or for you, left to do 
so wicked and torn 

I don't want to name this 
in case one day it calls me 
tells me the things I don't want to know 
tries to get me to just come home 

..I don't want to go home 

I don't want to clean it 
I'll stand myself under the shower 
stand underneath you for hours 
scrub my skin till it all comes off

129192

My first original new song since February. 

I played Caiaphas this season
and I prayed to plot your fall. 
Help me burn this book of memories
wipe the slate of any flaws.

It's the sound of all your seasons
when they're crashing down as one
and you're running out of reasons
justifying what you've done.
If the worst that you'd imagine
is the end of all these squalls,
trapping lightning in a bottle
doesn't seem that hard at all. 

Only men with no ambition 
could be crushed by tooth and claw.
In between the legs they found me
drawing circles on the floor.

It's the sound of all your seasons
when they're crashing down as one
and you're running out of reasons
justifying what you've done.
If the worst that you'd imagine
is the end of all these squalls,
trapping lightning in a bottle
doesn't seem that hard at all. 

Remember how you ran? 

It's the sound of all your seasons
when they're crashing down as one
and you're running out of reasons
justifying what you've done.
If the worst that you'd imagine
is the end of all these squalls,
trapping lightning in a bottle
doesn't seem that hard at all. 



Welcome To The Moment

written and recorded in 1 take on my phone in half an hour 

Lock the door and close the curtains
I've got something to confess
It's not the worst that could have happened
Sit down before I say the rest
 
and breathe
release
 
 
Hate the sin but not the sinner
Remember this when you have left
I would've told you all this sooner
But there never seemed to be the chance
 
 
and breathe
release
 
 
Nothing you could do can change it
It's been burning up inside my chest
Maybe in a while we can forget it
But for now just try to understand. 
 
 
and breathe
release 


Mouth


You tend to spend this century not really knowing what you need to know but
why 
if second chances are a thing we live with such intensity, don't know, don't mind
You've got to kill the attitude you're only ever born to lose except
try
internalise the monologue cos they don't really care at all but still just smile

We did good by you
But was it not enough
to save you from
your own devastation

The way out is through
You don't have to rush
To the windmills ride
You'll find your space there

The choking that you're feeling is resistance to the air you're trying to breathe, don't 
drown
The pressure on your chest is just the need to self-confess how you're feeling, it's fine
A time and space to rearrange the parts that failed you into self portraits, don't lie
Amazing how the mission gets forgotten by the time you get there, that's life

Devastation

FAWM 2020 Entry #1

Remembering Mars as it failed
all The light years between don't help
A pattern traced around the moon
These lunar scars look down on you

The dust inhaled
From fallen stars
Significance 
Is lost to us

Unshape the dark, drown the rings
Surrounding bodies in heaven's wings
Undream the Earth, it's mostly seas
Survive above, and so beneath

The sun will soon collapse
And what have you got to show for it?

You cannot fight this gravity
The black hole pulls all that it can see

Lunar Scars

Third FAWM entry for 2020, Music by the OD, vocals and lyrics by Sorin 
Footprints in the sands
Of time running free
The silence is mine
It comforts me 

I stop to reflect
In mirror shards
That person never waves back
I don't know who they are

Don't believe in accidents
Random luck's a lie
Wandering infinity
Under sunless sky
Solitude seduces me
Far from maddening crowds
Craving the simplicity
The world behind closed eyes

I'm chasing the moon
So she never sets
She orbits my world
and she moves my tides

w
Maybe on this journey
We can see it all
The middle and beginning
The end we make ourselves
This is how the story goes
until the pen runs out
spin it one more time for me
before the curtain drops

Sunless

4th FAWM 2020 entry, music by The OD, vocals and lyrics by Sorin

These concrete veins are wide awake
Pumping out souls on every street
Join me, let's get the fuck away
This place is done, you've seen it all

You only need to know the road
And trust in where you need to go 

Bathe my soul in neon light
So I can find my way again


The night will cover you in cold
The engine's drone will keep you warm
Writhe in our anonimity 
The glass and steel will make us small

[the light turns amber to red and we stop. i turn to look at her as the glow from the buildings illuminates her face, like a goddess of electricity guiding me down this night road. Wordlessly she smiles, and places her hand on my face. I inhale and the lights turn green again]

The Road

FAWM Entry 15022020

Now the sky has shut down
And we sleep with the leaves
We are watched by the moon
And she keeps what she sees

With a sigh on the breeze
Our souls are released
When he comes with his steed
Then the journey completes

ch
This world is not enough
To hold us in its thrall
We've crossed the ground below
And lived all we could live

Now the stars are like ghosts
Faded out distant lights
And we're gone by the sun
Our ship is the night

Beautiful Death

Sometimes I go inside my head and see that you've come over
And you're repainting the walls
Your footsteps echo down the halls

I try to stop you turning on a light to see
the shadows burn away
to make this place feel safe

You're not like me but that makes it better
Your folded wings shelter us in feathers
It's been so long, where have you been? 

Two hands across my back will push me forward
Onto this other path
Can we forget the past?

The bubble that you made to carry you here
and you have flown for miles
stay with me for a while

In Feathers

Starting with a short and simple acoustic number to get the wheels turning...

verdigris

I remember nothing
of what was said at all
Just the sense of leaving
before I took a fall

The urges get relentless
but words will always fail
Though Ive found your pages
I'm burning them instead

I've wasted too much time

They say I have a mission
Don't ask and you don't get
but wasted conversation
lays foundations for regret

i've given you my silver
and found you in a crowd
the spiral keeps on going
no lining to this cloud 


01 Verdigris

Written and recorded immediately after the first 


Orenda

Hands were placed upon your face
to try and block out what you'd seen
Spiders will build their castles to try and keep you in

I can hear the sound of you giving up the ghost that haunts you
Let me tell you something I once whispered into the hollow of a tree


Sit yourself down
you'll find this hard to believe
especially cos it's coming from me
but you have the energy to change
whatever it is that's bringing you down


The makeup and dresses that you wore were shields against the cold outside
but you have your family, even though they will deny you. 

take this umbilical feeling and pay it forward
you've got a lifetime of mistakes to learn from someday 

02 Orenda

My fourth FAWM entry and my first ever pure instrumental. Done entirely on my phone. 

04 L'appel du vide

I wrote some words. Then I picked up the guitar and played what came out...it's rough as hell, but it was a spur of the moment thing. 

chrono vampire

Draw the characters you'd named
for the story that
we'll tell again

lend you time so you can run
around for now
cos then we're done. 

Rest my head upon your chest
So you can rest
Get your heart back

Miss you even when you're here
A cenotaph
to what we were

Pick the card that calls to you
Don't say out loud
you'll spoil the show

I'll pick a shroud that fits on you
Cos after all its
the least I could do. 

06 Chrono Vampire

Music and production: Ian Lewis
Vocals and lyrics: Sorin Annuar

Raindancerzero

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