It’s been a while since I’ve posted. The world seems to have turned upside down in the meantime, but I continue to write songs and improvise instrumentals. Here is my latest offering, on the theme of Waystations. I like the word, as it feels like those off ramps from the main road of life, that we choose to explore and learn from.
Hope you enjoy!
Jim
This is the second (and final) part of World of Wonder. I’ve been having fun learning about recording the acoustic songs (as opposed to composing strictly instrumental and electronic). Of course, I have a lot more to learn. But life is a journey:>)
I’ll post the lyrics to the two songs below: Leather Fair, and World of Wonder. Enjoy! Jim
Leather Fair
Softly crunches the coming night
The queen crosses the menacing light
The king drops the crochet stitching
And leaves the gallery to all their bitching
I’ve tossed and turned these many days
Waiting for songs to gift their ways
Leaning on langsam and heavenly host
To portent the affairs of a ghost
Someone, somewhere must whistle this tune
So many possibilities, a Universal room
So many apprentices bent over their trays
So many wurst-hoarders foraging through hay
I alight on a trodder, this horse was once mine
Bewitched now by the ocean’s sweet chimes
Rocks and rolling waves on the lee shore
So many dreams, why not a few more?
World of Wonder
World of wonder
Simian home
Too much slumber Too many gnomes
Too many autocrats
Baying at the Moon
Too many aristocrats
Eating much too soon
Plate out a medley
From those long-ago tunes
I’ll follow my heart’s muse
And lose the buffoons
This latest batch of music is an experiment of interplay, between composed electronic pieces and mainly acoustic (guitar, voice, piano) songs. I’m just curious to see what the effect will be. The words for the two songs, Tottering to Infinity, and Remember Ott follow below. Hope you enjoy! Jim
Tottering To Infinity
Tottering to infinity, I’ve lost my unanimity
I would really love some sympathy
But there is no reward
For floundering in flowered paths
And gazing at the uncut grass
The whole, hazy undermass of legends left unknown
I started much too late
Tried to force an open gate
Talked myself into empty rooms
Mystic leaves and fallen brooms
Cellars full of spoiled red wine
Locks of amber, unbroken time
Something that was never mine
Is not terribly amused
I’m whimpering down that scattered path
The wind-torn soot, the broken lath
The places yet unseen
Will keep, until that frozen dome
Remnants of a happy home
The charging nestling crispy tome
Laughs loudly, here at last!
Remember Ott
Remember Ott
The pioneer
Left his home
More than forty-year
Said his prayers
By yonder lake
Took the blinds down
And returned the rake
I say old Ott
What have we here?
Is it a beaver
Or a gondolier?
Are there paw prints
On my lawn
Woe is me
A darling fawn!
Following up from the last set, Battery Life, which was mood musicky, here is a set that I think creates movie-like scenes, but without the film.
See what you think. (Hear what you see???)
Jim
This series of four compositions was inspired by the excellent book by Suzanne Simard: Finding The Mother Tree (2021). She is a professor of forest ecology at UBC, and the book is both a memoir of her life and career.