Songs

Seven years ago, in an apparent fit of madness, I composed enough songs to fill an album. Why I no longer remember. I showed a few of the best, hesitatingly, to a friend, who quickly, and rightly, denounced them.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING SONGS SUCK. If you're a pop star who really wants to end your career they are yours for the taking. I don't want them, but please credit me if you are in fact foolish enough to make use of my 20 year-old self's terrible lyricism.

Why am I posting this? Because I have some 1,000 files saved in my doc folder, dating back to the week after 9/11. It's good to check on one's progress over the years. Most of these obviously are not intended for this blog, but some were and never made it on here. I forget which of those categories these songs were intended as, but it's amusing, now, to see me take a crack at a format that I don't usually engage in.

Rhyming Rambling

Clear, concise and boring language/ without inflection without direction.

Songs these days are indie garbage/ (and I don't mean the band)

They're as pretentious as this recording/ they'll steal right from your hand.

Just me and my friends making music/ but we want to make a new correction.

I'm babbling in jibberish/ it's fluent gobbldygook,

Hark to pop sensibilities:/ all songs need a hook.

I've read the works and heard the sound/ looked at paintings and traveled 'round

We're well-versed in culture/ the brit-americana

But remembers Woodstock?/ Who saw play Sha-Na-Na?

We're making up something new/ to this end we're bound.

Rhyming in Swahili/ conversational in Hindi?

Perhaps it's only Yiddish/ it surely isn't trendy.

The band is small and compact/ we play without a contract.

The instruments are real here/ and the noise is genuine.

This may be the last song,/ it may be where we begin,

Either way you know it/ nothings missing, it's intact.

Funny verses silly chorus/ the man has lost his mind.

The song's not going nowhere/ but is one of a kind.

I'm babbling in jibberish/ it's fluent gobbldygook,

Hark to pop sensibilities:/ all songs need a hook.

Why I Don't Like Indie

Don't label us Indie/ we're making something else

I don't know what it is/ perhaps different since it sells

I'm sick of the pretension/ tired of the credentials

They say it's like the 60's/ but those are the essentials.

I want everyone to hear me,/ I want this song to be known.

Not interested in obscurity/ not playing on our own.

Get a manager, a contract/ book some gigs and spread the sound

If you're bothering to play it/ should spread the word around.

Now hear me, this is real/ why are you singing songs?

If it's for your own enjoyment/ then the sentiment is wrong.

Sing and play for an audience/ if your music is important

Why shelter the rest of us?/ Stand up and contend.

It's an old ideology/ it works for aristocracy,

And also for oligarchy/ the chosen special few.

A New Song

Anathema to old!/ Borrow from the Past.

Create for the moment/ Make sure it can last.

Speed it up to slow down/ Halt to make it fast.

Study up your history/ Keep track of new affairs.

The climate is a cycle/ We're losing polar bears.

It's destined to repeat itself/ Attention to your cares.

I've seen this before/ It's utterly unique.

The knowledge is out there/ They discovered it this week.

And lessons from the ages?/ Music never peaked.

Tired and cliched/ Revolutionary ruckus.

Done and done better/ Old folks free to suck us.

What makes you different/ Others were just fuck-ups.

Labels and Me

You label me a novelty/ you can say that I'm far out.

You can say he's Dylan-esque/ or perhaps just sauerkraut.

But don't label me indie.

Our band isn't interested/ in mindless foolish sound

The ethics of not-selling-out/ have been driven in the ground.

Don't dare label us indie.

You say there's no such thing/ each band is different

I call B.S., you share a mindset/ of underground commitment.

We've killed greater men for lesser offenses.

What happened to serious rock?/ It went alternative

The mainstream pop died/ the music now is furtive.

We can track you down.

Get serious about your music/ stop wasting all our time

Promotion by word-of-mouth/ is akin to a thought crime.

I know where you sleep.

The internet has given us/ means to be heard, you say

I don't have time to track every band/ who makes CDs these days.

We want a major label.

Refferences

I read a lot of Borges/ That's where I got the idea

Stairways to infinity/ I really hate Ikea

A modern Gregor Samsa/ Who shoots in heatstroke in Algeria

This room has no exit/ June 16th came, where were you?

Robert Johnson's making breakfast/ Muddy's in the can

Bo Diddley's pushin 80/ Fats turns on a fan

Chuck's been doing time/ Little makes heaps of sand

The house is owned by Jerry/ he sleeps down the avenue.

I can make it as obscure as you like

I can make it indecipherable

That doesn't make it any good

It merely makes it unlikeable.

Thucydides and Toynbee/ are arguing with Kant

Hegel is backing Nietszche/ Gibbon starts to rant

Khaldun looks on in wonder/ the philosophers start to chant

The historians record it all/ before they join the brawl.

Frank is drawing Batman/ Moore is writing prose

Art is more than tragedy/ Crumb's depicting hoes

Bode makes erotica/ Eisner really knows

Scott tries to depict it/ but the form is at a crawl.

I can make it as obscure as you like

I can make it indecipherable

That doesn't make it any good

It merely makes it unlikeable.

Munch is off heard yelling/ Magritte smokes a pipe

Monet is painting lilies/ Manet looks for a snipe

Michelangelo's on the ceiling/ Mattise's plums are ripe

They're all looking at each other/ wondering why they do it.

Twain is copying Swift/ Pope is in the corner

Poe's reading to the class/ Hawthorne's in another lecture

Eliot looks to no one/ Donne adds some texture

Masters Milton and Chaucer/ somehow will get through it.

I can make it as obscure as you like

I can make it indecipherable

That doesn't make it any good

It merely makes it unlikeable.

Today Never Knows

A quick nod to the Beatles

A song without the rhymes

A remembrance for the band

A tribute to innovation

Phony Beatlemania

Comes back again again

Cobain idolized them

To do so is not wrong

The songs were choice

The sound evolved

The music was on top

The listeners today still get it

Paul and Ringo are left

Changes have taken place

Charting no longer are they

They moved with the legacy

I wish I had heard them

I wonder about their minds

I never was there to hear it

I just have my records

Other bands paved the way

And of course they were succeeded

Modern Bachs of invention

A small congratulations

Or perhaps they didn't know

Or they didn't care to think

Or the lives they lead were phony

Or they truly meant what they said

Oh, from early stuff to late

Amongst the animosity

My fondness hasn't wavered

A Liverpuddlian still listens

Procrastination

I penned a trip around the world

It would take me nigh five years

Fifty countries, seven continents

But I procrastinated

Politics intrigued me somewhat

I thought I'd try and join the race

Become mayor of San Francisco

But I procrastinated

I considered a PhD

But I wanted to pay off loans

I got a job, and said someday

But I procrastinated

The world evolves without my help

But here I'm stuck within it all

I figured I'd make the change

But I procrastinated

Terror

If you are a fundamentalist/ I sing this song to you

Please stop foisting your ideas/ upon the you-know-who

He's done a lot of damage/ it just gets worse to bear

Perhaps he'd reconsider/ if it was his ass over there.

If you are a fundamentalist/ I sing this song to you

Please stop foisting your ideas/ upon the you-know-who

He's planning to do bad things/ to some people on a bus

He learned how from his friends/ yet he is one of us.

If you are a fundamentalist/ I sing this song to you

Please stop foisting your ideas/ upon the you-know-who

He's worried about the children/ and goes into the school

He wants to teach a lesson/ and not be made a fool.

If you are a fundamentalist/ I sing this song to you

Please stop foisting your ideas/ upon the you-know-who

He's done it all for Jesus/ he's done it for Allah

Perhaps he did it for Moses/ or fights for the Buddha.

If you are a fundamentalist/ I sing this song to you

Please stop foisting your ideas/ upon the you-know-who

He wars and fights think of the globe/ he resides in the lands of strife

He considers it a mandate/ if it cost us or him his life.

Album Filler

Spector said that two are good and ten are crap

I'm trying to get past that make it as fluid as a rap

Every syllable is choice, investigate the words I unwrap

They may be somewhat ludicrous, but they sound okay.

I require rhyme and meter

You've been drinking by the liter

Dr. Honeydew and Beeker

That verse doesn't make much sense.

We'll try and do some solos now to distract

And then just one more verse to complete this act

A pre-debut comeback attack

Though I don't really know what that means.

I could claim this was a concept album

Before this track was laid, and then some

But if I did so now I'd only sound dumb

How many times have I used the word sound?

Utah and Virgil

Virgil lived in Moab/ preplexed by popularity

People coming through his town/ they never would wait and see.

He started writing fantasy/ an unpopular genre that

But it paid his bills and his heat/ got milk so as to feed the cat.

Virgil wrote of heroes, tired/ tried and well-known, Joseph Campbell

Had heard it all before he knew/ the piece, though, had some potential.

'A sword-and-sandal standby'/ 'Unoriginal in its scope and theme'

The critics roundly panned it/ for not being close enough to them.

Virgil went off backpacking/ through arches park and the canyonlands

He decided to find out what/ the tourists came to understand.

He changed in there, came out renewed/ took on a pen-name and began

To write of something bold and new/ 'Abbey', they said 'I am a fan.'

Schooling Blues

Take yourself a little pill/ here its called a test,

We'll scoop your brains and/ add a hose to drain the rest.

If you are seven/ then you want to be the best.

We'll slowly teach the country/ lower standards now.

Until 100%/ can pass full know-how.

We can make material/ test-makers allow.

Why have recess anymore?/ Why let kids be kids?

Running, jumping and screaming/ why not call the feds?

Their starting to act up now/ go and get their lids.

Jimmy has ADHD/ he acts like a little boy

Full of vim and energy/ likes to play with toys.

Why isn't he studying?/ It should be his joy.

Throw out the testing system/ bring back real learning.

Progressive education/ teachers worrying,

Its challenging to teach them/ test-books are burning.

They don't demand it/ we need to do it for them

They aren't proper people yet,/ American citizens,

They just want to live as kids/ schools won't let 'em.

Obligatory Other-Sex Song

What did we do to deserve Stephen Malkmus?

What'd we do to him that he had to sing to us?

Oh wait, wrong song.

On Thursday Morning I met her and fell in love at sight

By Saturday she knew my name, and I was feeling tight

She hooked up with my best friend the Sunday after that

Thanked me for introducing her, otherwise they'd've never met.

That Wednesday I wrote him a letter complaining

About his Monday's interminable bragging

Come Friday he stopped talking to me for good

And on Tuesday I told him what to do he should.

Her name was Esmerelda, a beautiful gypsy girl

Her eyes were green, her skin was dark, her hair was full of curls.

She looked at me so coyly, and lead me on a chase

But in this relationship race I came in last place.

My friend is no longer a friend of mine, a Brutus or a Judas

She betrayed my heart's desire and slept with Aluitous.

She knew I wanted him for myself but didn't seem to care

I turned on the blender and put in her teddy-bear.

The two of them are happy and take all pains to show it

But misery with one another, the chapters I have co-writ.

The slut will move to another man, and I can make my claim.

With my outlook on love it's a wonder I've not gained fame.

His name was Aluitous, a swimmer's build he had.

When he asked me if I needed that chair it nearly drove me mad.

His blue eyes pierced through my soul and out the other end,

And that is why he is shacking up with my former best friend.

In the Forty-Eighth Hour

Up all night

One bleak light

Shines glimmering on my head.

Two days gone

Two days long

Without sleep, without my bed.

Evil red eye

As if high

The rabbit stares unblinking.

Eat ice-cream

And then scream

The fantasy is breaking.

Nightmare visions

No sensations

Can compare to the exhaustion.

Pumped on coffee

Pumped on caffeine

Pumped on frightened adrenaline.

Keep Rocking

Rock and Roll may one day day die/ But that day is not now.

We're going to keep the Rock alive/ and we'll show you how.

Write down a tune, get a band/ one that can really play,

Come up with some melodies/ and now you're on your way.

Make sure the drummer keeps the beat/ and the song's on-key.

Play around and mess with the sound/ and Rock will be freed.

A bassist and some piano/ don't forget guitar,

Then sing your song and maybe/ it will make you a star.

Take some money for yourself/ and give away the rest

Your company won't like it/ but fans think you're the best.

The point in all of this,/ is to make a better world.

Your life of Rock needn't be/ solely of drugs and girls.

I'm not a preacher,/ don't think Jesus was son of God,

Just throwing out suggestions/ of how to do one's job.

If you get the money,/ get fame and Rocker's glory

Do something with your power/ use your ability.

Make your many millions/ and play to millions as well,

Your'e a Rock and Roller now/ life couldn't be more swell.