New Found Songs
From Jerry Lemmon, an old friend of my father’s, I got a request for a song about the sea… Here is a strange version of a song of mine I never seem to finish called “The Rest”… The gurgling sounds are field recordings of the Wave Organ in San Francisco Bay. I have once again been told the lyrics are nearly indecipherable (I recorded the voice and guitar on an old shoebox tapedeck, then recorded that machine’s playback in the shower as an echo chamber)- At least I’m having fun here… The lyrics are as follows:
“When I was young” he said
“we were giants in the earth back then.
There were still fish, there were still girls.
Now the fish are gone and the girls are women.”
“We could put in at any port from Alaska to Mexico,
and there was nowhere that wasn’t strange-
Now the world’s the same everywhere you go”
When I get back on dry land I’ll never dry out again
“I haven’t seen the old man standing on the waves for awhile
but the last time that I did I swear to god he as he sank he smiled”
“We were told, we were warned- We could see how things were going but you don’t know that you’re starving ’till all your ribs are showing”
When I get back on dry land I’ll never dry out again
He leaned on the rail, shook his head and gazed across the green expanse to the west
“Turn around, head for shore, the Japanese can have the rest”
When I get back on dry land I’ll never dry out again
From Andrew Simmons comes the prescription “a song about sleep with voice and electric bass”. Here is a song about sleep with voice and electric bass.
From Kira Lynn Cain comes “a song of seduction to a snake, without the word snake. with samples of birds upright bass, electric hollowbody (baritone if possible) NO acoustic guitar, NO chords with greater than four pitches stacked, shakers, girl choir, bass clarinet, trombone” Maybe someday I will add the horns, but here is everything else. I got the bird sounds from a field recording I did in Austin, Texas. The female vocals are Noelle Cahill.
Here are the lyrics, as they are a little difficult to understand:
slide over here, slide over here (don’t make a sound)
I’ve struck at your head, you’ve struck at my heel, now it’s time (to lay down)
in the leaves and in the dust, in the leaves and dust (of nations)
we will undo history’s gown and bury (generations)
Chorus:
for a thousand years, for a thousand years
I’ve wandered this crooked earth
with the sweat from my face and the blood from my hands
soaking the ground from birth
I can see you and me (together)
eden in flames, desire (untethered)
Chorus
pier on the Hudson, Manhattan, June 2010