../melody in chaos
Words are my thread; music is my needle
I haven’t written too much on the internet in the last few years because I am afraid of what…
This internal poll will be open for the rest of eternity, or until eternity runs out of time, power, or storage
To run out of storage is to run out of time.… continued...
A fav track by Canadian artist Bruce Cockburn, performed last year during a rehearsal for a live stream from my apartment (at the time) in the old Hood’s Sarsaparilla Factory Lowell, MA.
My favorite new track this year. Written with Composer+Producer Masaya Ozaki (https://masayaozaki.com), in response to a call he received from a music licensing company for “summer songs about adventure and time.” Every once in a while, I write with no irony. Anti-confessional mode, you might say.
“Screw off, I’m happy.”… continued...
A song written in 2018 in Laurel Canyon, CA. Performed this year in Lowell, MA (which we affectionately called Lowell Canyon while living there for 8 months in 2021).
LYRICS
time will not release
a missing puzzle piece
or faded memories
of deleted scenes
you can’t watch a sunrise
through someone else’s eyes
if they never see you
in dreams
clouds over LA
dance alone
between skies
distant freeways shimmer
traffic as rivers
red and white ribbons
valley to sky
lost friends reappear
in dusty windshields
as evening light hits
California 5
clouds over LA dance alone between skies
drifting the night
suspended from life
shadows of every last good bye
clouds over LA dance alone between skies
Solo acoustic version of “ok” from Hola, Sayulita! (2010), and also included on my early-years greatest hits collection Your Song Is Beautiful: 2002-2012 (2012).
This performance is from March 2021 in the old Hood’s Sarsaparilla Soda factory, my temporary home Lowell, MA for the last 8 months. We leave Lowell for good in ~2 weeks on 7/31.… continued...
Set 1 ended w/ some transmission glitches, so an impromptu second set righted the wrongs.… continued...
My heteronym daydream cowboy Stryker West said it was high time for another country-fried set, so who was I to refuse?… continued...
A fav song took on new resonance in late May when I escaped NYC for a few days, for the first time since December 2019. Performed in Bridgehampton NY, interspersed w/ footage from the heaviest part of NYC’s (1st?) lockdown from March to May.
Original Version on Sunrise Highway (2015)
Lyrics
I set out walking, just to find a friend,
Make a human connection in a world of pretend,
To share faith in the future, in the face of decay,
‘Cos when you can’t escape the night, every dawn is the end of days.… continued...
06 Sep 2020.
Sound check on Limelight app. Unreleased track “Time Zero” surrounded w/ some loose texture and tone. Sometimes ideas that disappear for a a few years all of a sudden calculate their worth in retrospect. “Write it forward,” is a mode I know well.
LYRICS
Things got strange
Sequences rearranged
Machines crashed
Systems disarrayed
Take us back, take us back
Rewind the line
To when we knew love
for the first time!… continued...
From January to June 2018, my wife Cat costume designed the Amazon series adaptation of the podcast Homecoming that shot in L.A., so we decamped Brooklyn for a 1930s cottage aerie perched halfway up Laurel Canyon. I bought a knock around Seagull guitar at the perfect scaled All-In-One guitar shop in Koreatown, and recorded a couple dozen tracks in our Gould Avenue house.… continued...
Rainstorm / 20170717
Bridgehampton, NY
Close friends’ house, Cottage bedroom
improv on a 44-key upright Grieg piano, un-tuned, sticky keys
iPhone w/ a Shure MV88 lightning condenser sitting on a windowsill
this one’s for the ones who stop to think
this one’s for the ones who always knew
this one’s for the ones who see the absurdity
this was a place we lived in peace
a place we lived in silence
a place we lived together in light
the last time
is cloud nine
and you won’t know
you’re dead
but the saddest time
is the first time
you see
the last time
up ahead
how many days can you see through things
how frayed is a soul made of string
how many ways can a memory bring you down
what happened all the power burned out
what happened all that’s certain’s in doubt
what happened all the love turned it back on us
there’s no one around who doesn’t think they know
nowhere you’re left to be, no place left to go
i believe in my dream
I believe in my dream
in my song, i believe you’ll see
all the lives we are to lead
searching for answers
is a waste of precious time
destiny doesn’t ring the bell,
doesn’t tell you you’ve arrived
songbird on an electric line
only knows he’s incomplete
caught up in a lookout for love
all his faith on endless repeat
may never know magic
of a returned call
but he never sounds tragic
never sounds small
You came a long long way
just to find nothing
on the other end of a promise
from the other side of the sun
the road was mapped but never real
still the dream of a long gone man
now foxtails push up through cracked cement
and long abandoned plans
Paper streets always burn.… continued...
“A bee, a bird, and a chicken are hanging out in the Hollywood hills…” sounds like the start of a joke, but it’s just a field recording. The bees are pollinating a perpetual-blooming Echium Candicans (“pride of Madeira”) flowering shrub in our Laurel Canyon Garden, while a mockingbird, a scrub jay, a few other birds, and a chicken across the street join in the chorus.… continued...
all you’ve got is a feeling
and what i got won’t show
b/c our visions of love
only intersected long ago
gonna go where every light leads
if it only takes me round the block
i don’t care
at least i’m searching
at least i’m driving
where you’re still aching
to get somewhere
first time i knew luck was
the first time we laughed at the same truth
but there’s only so many lies
you can sell yourself and still pull through
“burning a bridge” burns one ahead,
not one already crossed.… continued...
the smarter you are today
the more you live in shadow
never giving up all you know
‘cos it’s
quiet nowhere
la la la la la la la la la
it’s quiet nowhere
to long for someday soon
is to long for days gone by
they’re both parallel paper streets
through a
quiet nowhere
the sound of things falling is the same sound
as things rising into the air
time spent afraid of what you might hear
well, that’s a quiet nowhere
that feel when the world lets you down
that feel when old friends freeze you out
when you’re seen as wrong when everyone’s not right
it’s quiet nowhere
we were young
you were younger
never were to be in love
i should’ve known better
every price has a one
you wanted the world to burn
vanish into points of no return
‘cos hardest to learn
you never could say
love your self any way
afraid of truth
living in shadows
is no way to move through life
in the end, in this haunted future
you set yourself alight
saturation turns to gray
where there are only beautiful days
you found only
darkness in sunshine
you saw only one
way out
Mattie was the kinda girl
who saw the end of the world
every time she opened her eyes
Roger was the kinda guy
never turned down a ride
figured “the end of days is just down the line.”
the price you pay
counting on judgment day for love
is to waste the light away
wide awake
wishing on the dark
(in Wonderland)
they found an acre and a half
halfway up Wonderland
in September 1973
they spent a few years
thinking the end was near
and cut down none of their trees
their earth gave way on a red flag day
right around 1982
they held on fast
against a backdraft
into the black they flew
they always thought of each other
as first time lovers
in an endless secret rendezvous
but sometimes living a life of desire
leaves you dreaming of fire
in a state of always almost coming true
I knew everything of you
in how you said your name.
On our way to points B unknown
from whatever points A.
I will never need to know
how the shadows fell across your face
In that place you used to be
Before you escaped
To California. for untold revelations, on a self-sent invitation.… continued...