a prompt to soundtrack a supermarket tv spot turns into a meditation on time and place, and 3 great tracks
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
21 December 2024
GreenAcres, FL
Squeezed this recording in and among requisite holiday obligations. This track’s always cut right through me in the best way. Christmas songs are tinged with sadness. Not Frosty The Snowman, of course, but a lot of them. The nod to sadness, I think, is what makes so many holiday songs universal.…
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Someone To Watch Over Luna
This spaced-out Someone To Watch Over Me is a late morning take, on the heels of a night that saw Luna cluster 3 epileptic seizures between 8:30p and 5:30a. It was a long night. We were all a bit drawn.
inside track: canyon songbird #7
substack mirror:
In early May 2018 for a couple weeks, while I lived in LA’s Laurel Canyon, a mockingbird set up shop atop a utility pole just across Gould Ave from our cottage. He spent his time flitting and flipping on his perch, calling out across the hills for a mate.…
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into endless blue (20240518b)
a song about the gains in losses
Leaving New York Sessions
18 – 21 May 2024
1/2 way up the hill
is a long way down
to extend your horizon
to wave away clouds
into the great unknown
into endless blue
1/2 way up the hill
was the best we could do
where calm clear sky
is the everyday
no wonder the sun
yearns to steal away
into the great unknown
into endless blue
1/2 way up the hill
was the best we could do
echoes of times
when we were strong
swirled into good bye
after so long
what keeps you alive
is not the same
as what makes you live
or what flies away
Windfall (20240521a)
Leaving New York Sessions
Brooklyn, NY
21 May 2024
June 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of my 1st record, Windfall (https://thereflectors.bandcamp.com/album/windfall). With that album, I came into my own as a full-fledged songwriter, and fulfilled a lifelong dream to arrange and orchestrate my music into a sum greater than its parts.…
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Julie With… (Brian Eno Cover)
One of my fav Eno tracks off my fav Eno record, Before & After Science. Performed in an April 2021 livestream from my fantastic temporary living situ in the converted Hood’s Sarsaparilla Soda factory in Lowell, MA.
Riding the D with Casey and Bob (20240519c)
Brooklyn, NY
19 May 2024
the infinite dark
First new track in a while spilled out today, on the heels of my first couple weeks flying solo here in NYC (Cat’s away in Melbourne on Apple’s “Metropolis” for at least a year). A couple days ago, Luna underwent some demanding diagnostics that uncovered she has epilepsy. I’m still processing news and new routines.…
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because noting
tr: Because nothing is yellow, everything is green.
haha, at least everything’s not blue…
upon a glass road reflection
Artist Ward Spring paints The Glass Road to “Upon A Child’s Doll Reflection [disquiet0180-matryoshkamusic]” off my 2015 record Sunrise Highway.
…YouTube Liner Notes
Puddles everywhere. Certain angles are nice to ponder. The Upside Down. Although I am now dogless, I still go out for “dogwalks”. This scene was 7AM yesterday in the Union Bay Natural Area.
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Inside Track 003: This Time of Year (20221218d)
written: 20191113.0927
key: A
time: 3/4
one for the lonely
I set out to write a “holiday song” a few years back, even daring to dream of expanding the thought into an EP I would definitely call A Very Westy Holiday.
The EP’s still a dream, but I was home in NYC a couple weeks back, and dusted off the track, while also dusting off Jolie, my Gibson ES335 modded by Paul Schwartz of Peekamoose Guitars.…
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Inside Track 002: Need To Be
In 2018, my wife Cat costume designed the Amazon series Homecoming in Los Angeles, so we decamped Brooklyn for a 1930s cottage aerie perched halfway up Laurel Canyon. I couldn’t bring any guitars to LA, because when you pack for an 8-month trip, with no back-and-forths, hard decisions have to be made between fashion studio and music studio.…
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princess (sarsaparilla sessions 20220330.1)
recorded at the Hood’s Sarsaparilla Soda factory,
30 march 2021
lowell, ma
no princes in this city
no warnings about the wicked
just a princess and a quiet boysleep in a sleepless city
crystal in a concrete world
just a princess and a quiet boya silence passes through us
as our eyes meet on the subway
it wakes me with laughter as we sway with the train
a quiet moment of inspiration
just a boy
and his princessfaith in a faithless city
diamonds in a leaden world
just a princess and a quiet boy syncingthis silence given to us is simply to find
a quiet moment of inspiration
just a boy and a princess
from Windfall, released August 2, 2004
https://thereflectors.bandcamp.com/track/princess
Long Road Ahead (20221016a)
my most spun track on Spotify from my former days as The Reflectors. Written in 2008. Released in 2009 on my record Goodbye Monday Blue.
It’s all still true lol.
https://thereflectors.bandcamp.com/track/long-road-ahead
we got a long road ahead
settle down. settle back. settle in.
don’t you know that we’re gonna have to work until we’re dead?…
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all the things you love (20221015b)
all the things you love, recorded live this past quiet Saturday magic hour.
Been on a ritual Nick Drake dive in the last couple weeks. Lol can you tell?
I find a watercourse way through life in Nick Drake’s songs – the paradox being he never found that way for himself.…
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arms length in dreams (20220428c)
Arms Length In Dreams
20220421.0744, 20220424.2258
(G) I’ve seen good luck
I’ve seen bad
i’ve crashed (Em) big, i’ve (Cmaj7) stood tall
(G) but most days
just stand still
and don’t (Em) see much (Cmaj7) luck at (G) all
risks i (Em) take
sometimes time (G) out
What else can I (D) do?…
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Goes The Day [20220428b]
Written 20200418.1020
C F G
F C G
C F G
these days i wake in the same dream
F C G
where living is the flip side of life
Am. Adim7 Am7 D
where the future’s a memory of plans ahead
F G Am
where sometimes dying doesn’t mean you’re dead
F C G
gone gone gone goes the day
F C G
back back back all the way
Am Adim7 Am7 D
to a far far far off place
F G C
goes the day
empty streets, distant echoes
footsteps, indifferent neon signs
sirens, silence, lonely traffic lights
sounds of a world waving goodbye
Em F C
today aches for yesterday
Em F C
tomorrow’s just a someday place
Am G F
where the only answer, somehow,
Am G F G
is we all take the same exit out
Counting [20220428a]
written in Laurel Canyon 2018
LYRICS
What if we could ride all the waves
What if the world was safe
for everyone we are?
What if we could exchange
Every turn we’ll ever take
For one North Star?
Counting on lightning
Counting on dreaming
Counting on sleeping
sometime soon
Counting on one plan
Counting on another hand
(and I’m still) Counting on you
What if we could live on a cloud
above the rain
where stars are the only lights
Where the wind is stable ground
and blind faith carries us through the sky?…
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Another Post About Peace
medium mirror: https://westyreflector.medium.com/…
It’s absurd that war is just “declared,” whereas peace requires “negotiation.”
Peace, for some reason, always requires a “process.”
Sometimes you have to “sue” for peace. Taking someone to court, in a way, makes you an aggressor, so, in a way, litigating the end of a war turns aggressors into defendants, and defenders into plaintiffs.…
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