Dreaming Over Yucatán D A Ayer 2023-05-12 In high school, I kept a dream journal for a while. I thought I might use it for some writing project or other, although I’m not sure I ever did. I felt bored and inconsequential, impatient to be off to college and “real life”, equating those two, not yet getting the joke. I was very much in need of something to do. I read a lot back then. Pop psychology of the day emphasized “self actualization” and “finding yourself”, and there was a niche market for books and articles about dream study. You couldn’t do a school writing project describing your experiments with mind-altering substances—assuming you had any—but mind-altering practices seemed like fair game, as long as they were justifiably philosophical in nature. Yoga and meditation were trending, though still considered pretty exotic. But we all have dreams, right? So I started reading up on dream theory. The more how-to oriented authors suggested keeping a dream journal to help you remember your dreams, the first step to analyzing and understanding them. Most suggestions about the meaning of dreams—especially the notion of images or people in dreams as symbols—struck me as abject hokum. But I was interested, if only in an adolescent, navel-gazing sort of way. Back then, I could still fall asleep easily, though getting out of bed was a different story. I got some sort of notepad to keep by the bedside along with a pencil and a flashlight, resolving to wake up after each dream and immediately write down as much as I could remember before falling back asleep. I was surprised when it actually seemed to work. Though it wasn’t very predictable, I did get to recording a dream or two every few nights. I detected no pattern to my dreaming. Yet eventually I tended to recall more details on waking, and it seemed to me the dreams were more vivid than before. Still, they didn’t seem to mean anything at all: fascinating, odd, sometimes troubling, but just dreams. One morning I woke up and scribbled down as much as I could about a dream I still remember parts of, though only as images. A friend and I were flying in a light plane—neither of us were pilots, but I was familiar with single-engine Cessnas because my father was an avid amateur aviator, and I’d spent a lot of time in the air with him when I was younger—and we were looking down at a dense jungle canopy. And though I’ve never been to Yucatán, I felt sure that’s where we were, looking for Mayan ruins or something. Now, the doors had been taken off this plane, so it was possible to lean out and even stand on the small footrest on top of the landing gear strut. And so we did that, on either side of the plane, and then we looked at each other and both just stepped off altogether…and we kept on flying. We swooped down toward the trees and then back up again, exhilarated, laughing to think we’d needed a plane at all. It was one of clearest, most visually detailed and colorful dreams I can remember having up until that time, though I can’t recall its ending. My friend in the dream was a girl I knew from school. We sang in a choir and had been in some plays together, and we’d hung out but never dated. She went out with a couple of my friends from time to time, and I was all wrapped up romantically with someone else. But at some point I made the mistake of relating the barest outline of this dream to another friend, and someone in our crowd had read somewhere that flying with someone in your dream symbolized a sexual relationship and so we were both subjected to weeks of relentless teasing, all thanks to my dream. At least, that’s how I remember it. My senior year ended without us ever going on a date. Loose lips sink ships, as the Navy used to say, and I guess I took that to heart. I stopped sharing anything about my dreams with anyone. My friend’s family moved a few towns away that summer. I went off to college at the other end of the country, where my old romantic entanglements dissolved. She left for college a year later, somewhere off in the opposite direction. We’d write letters once in a very long while, keeping in touch, casually. I stopped keeping a dream diary, though now and then I’d write down something from a dream just to help me remember it, pondering whether it meant anything at all. Years later, we ran into each other again, accidentally, at least on my part. And then, two of those lifetimes ago, she married me.Getting an hour of DST back is a celebration for me each year, and I was determined to post something along those lines. I'd already settled on the accordion (MIDI) when this autumn turned a bit melancholy, but I stuck with it and here's what happened. Stems are start-aligned with the accompaniment so there's some silence ahead of the dry vox. Patience.... Lyrics available for reuse as usual: ---------- Falling Backwards (cc)BY 2015-10-31 Toss a pebble in the pond and watch the ripples cross your face. Drop a mountain in the ocean and watch it sink without a trace. There's no one standing who's an island and none that dream who dare not sleep. Stare long enough at your reflection: you'll see the monsters in the deep. The tide rolls in. The tide goes out. The moon sets once you close your eyes and tales you tell to all your friends contain less truth than they surmise.... Fire a rocket from a bottle and watch the sparks fall to the ground. Launch another up to heaven: it falls forever, round and round. We learn to laugh before we've suffered, [but] learn to cry before we smile. Shout your name into the canyon. It only echoes for a while. The fog creeps in. The stars go out. A darkness whispers in your heart that all the songs you loved to sing wound up in keys you didn't start.... Cast the dice or spin the bottle. Trace the lines across your hand. Know that all the columns in your palace will in the end be grains of sand. The wind is still the only wisdom that can erase the sphinx's grin. Life's a lot like falling backwards. We only see where we've just been. The tide rolls in. The stars go out. The moon falls once your eyes have closed and all the tales you tell yourself contain less truth than you supposed....When I heard Admiral Bob's [url=https://ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/59313]"Monuments"[/url] remix back in 2019, I immediately wished I'd sung the original pell like this. I've intended to re-perform and repost it for years now, but never managed; only so many hours in a day, only so many days in a life, only so many rooms in a house crammed with works in progress... It occurred to me a good first step would be to just cut and splice the original vocals if only to use as a practice track. Here's the result. I'm guessing it's enough. The flacs are simply manipulations of my original pell, [url=https://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/45111]"Monuments"[/url], from way back in 2014, realigned to 104 bpm. There's a good bit of silence at the beginning, which aligns with Admiral Bob's instrumental intro. I had to repost my new version so a remix tree would be generated and Admiral Bob would be properly credited. That's now over @ "[url=https://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/67855]Monuments ft. Admiral Bob[/url]." Thanks for your patience.For many Americans, 1968 was the worst year ever. The Reverend Martin Luther King was assassinated, the Vietnam War escalated, US cities and college campuses rioted in protest, and Richard Nixon was the President Elect. Christmas of 1968 also saw television coverage of humans orbiting the moon for the first time. My daughter Cait chose the tune and performed the solo. I finished the backup trio up a little late for the Hope for the Holidays event, thanks to some technical difficulties in the studio. The NASA materials are available on line and are in the public domain: Apollo 8 by NASA Usage Public Domain Mark 1.0 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ The Apollo 8 mission. Digitized, cataloged and archived by the Houston Audio Control Room, at the NASA Johnson Space Center. My stems excerpted these two: [url=https://archive.org/download/Apollo8/029-AAA.flac]https://archive.org/download/Apollo8/029-AAA.flac[/url] [url=https://archive.org/download/Apollo8/558A_1of1.flac]https://archive.org/download/Apollo8/558A_1of1.flac[/url]One of the backdrops for [i]Silentium Universi[/i], and another entry in my Sci-Fi Jazz Standards series. ---------- lyrics (cc)BY 2017 D A Ayer Once you're under my sway there's no getting away. Your orbit's exact...as a matter of fact...it's begun to decay. And you're spinning around not making a sound. No light can escape this terminal scrape as you've only just found. You're at the horizon: my event horizon... Now there's no turning back. Your safety line has gone slack. There's no word from your friend at the opposite end. Now the screen has gone black! And they're starting to fear that you'll never appear at the rendezvous point...'cause the time's out of joint...and the moment is near... You've passed the horizon: my event horizon! Since you've nowhere to go there's one thing you should know: the quantum effect we've all come to expect isn't running this show. With what's is and what's not no longer part of the plot, in this singular place all of time...all of space...is the size of a dot beneath the horizon: my event horizon. The end's always the same. Love's attraction's to blame and my heart doesn't care if it's all or nowhere; that's not part of the game. There's no need to pretend, to explain or defend, just look up at the sky and the clouds passing by on this day that can't end... inside this horizon: our event horizon... ...inside the horizon. Our event horizon...Skepticism is fundamental to science. Belief is essential to culture. History is famously written by the victors. Truth is something else entirely. This is just a song. ---------- My self-rebuttal of sorts was posted as [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/56463]Arm in Arm[/url] August 2017. ---------- Do You Really Believe? (cc)BY D A Ayer 2017-04-29 Do you really believe that a candlelight vigil can save just one child from an enemy mine? And do you imagine your comfortable protests will soften the hearts of those holding the line? They've been tempered by honor; they've been hardened in battle; and they have no illusions: they know we're at war. When the orders come down they'll know just what to do. There'll be no hesitation. No question "what for?" This war starts whenever the ones we call leaders imagine they're gods and can have what they choose while their slaves fight each other for crumbs from the table. Once you've taken it all you've got so much to lose. So don't make the mistake of assuming these people who are raping our country have a lack of resolve. Their fortresses stand on a bedrock of cruelty even eight billion tears can't begin to dissolve. There's no length they won't go to, no law they won't alter, no lie too debased to be spoken as true. For if absolute power corrupts absolutely its inheritance hardens the grip of the few. Now it isn't the science they plan to demolish: but the sharing of knowledge that erases their fog. And it isn't the arts that they aim to extinguish, just creation not chained at the throat like a dog. Now I know you don't think that nonviolence is easy. Your convictions are real. Your beliefs are profound. But I hope you'll remember the lessons of history so the world can remember that you stood your ground. 'Cause a battle is coming, like so many before it: fought by money and power masquerading as right. And I'll stand by you, sister, when the armies come marching and we'll shelter the Truth 'til the dawn's early light.Listening to Kara's lovely "[url=http://ccmixter.org/files/mindmapthat/55112]Blindly Love[/url]", the Cold War baby part of me felt compelled to answer, "But we do...though maybe not the way you meant and it isn't always good." Second preview and alt format are dry vocals trimmed. Preview (Mix version) is full mix as posted on [url=https://soundcloud.com/gongmaster/hard-wired-born-blind]SoundCloud[/url] (with cover photo): STEMs and MIDI are in the zip. Lyrics below for the taking. ---------- Hard Wired, Born Blind Hard wired...we cling to the things that are most like us. We're all hard wired...to push away a stranger with a moue of disgust. We're all hard wired...to be deaf to the tongues that we don't understand, to eliminate our brothers, make their daughters into mothers and to bury our flag in their blood-soaked sands. We're hard wired! Hard wired...to hate the ones from the very next patch. You're all hard wired...to cheat on anybody wants to limit your catch. You're all hard wired...to push the red button and make the first strike, 'cause the pot and the kettle find it easier to settle once the other guy's head is safely stuck on a pike. You're hard wired! Hard wired...to give less to you and take more for me. I'm all hard wired...to vote for the candidate I think I could be. I'm all hard wired...to gaze up at the one that strokes my coat, and to bask in his praise until the end of days when he readies a razor to slit my throat. I'm hard wired! Hard wired...there's a snake coiled tightly at the base of your brain. He's hard wired...to explode into violence at the mere threat of pain. He's hard wired...to wait in the darkness for the wheel to turn. But love will die and empires burn while he crawls on, until we learn that we're hard wired! You're all hard wired! I'm all hard wired! We're all hard wired! Hard wired! Hard wired! Hard wired! ...and born blind to it.INSTRUCTIONS 1) Close your eyes 2) Imagine V. Putin with a sock puppet 3) Press the Play button NOTES As soon as I heard [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/55446]Poverty Switch[/url] I knew I'd have to use it. Originally planned for Key of Love, this took much, much longer than I expected. But I think it fits this new event theme even better. The instrumental is a pure remix of [i]Poverty Switch[/i]. I tried to bring out more of Martijn's bass and animate the sax line a little, pump up the solo. Other than that, it's just a slice-up of [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/55446]the original[/url]. The voice and all the lyrics are published just next door as [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/55629]What is This Love?[/url]. Is it hopeful? Well, I live in hope.This is the composite source for the vocal track used in [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/55630]The Big Lie[/url], published here without commercial restriction. Putin's sock puppet is three 96k flac files: -- Clean voice composite: Almost raw but leveled snips from four performances. -- Bent voice: Clean comp, pitch- and formant-shifted using a variety of plugins -- Processed voice: Mix of the above reprocessed using iZotope voiceover settings. Lyrics ---------- What Is This Love? cc(BY) 2017-02-20 D A Ayer What? Is this love? I'm hurt that you would ask my dear. What is this love? Can't you feel me pour it in your ear? What is this? Love? Could anything but love come near to sating all the lust that lies behind your tightly-stretched veneer? What is this Love? What is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Uh... My love floats up around you like a sea of warm, gold rain to whisk off undesirables like a relocation train. It laughs at gimps in public as it slurps its soupe du jour and reaches for its side-arm when it hears the word "couture"... What? Is this Love? What? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Uh... My love it lubricates you as it lights your fat cigar with petrol I've extracted from a former SSR. My love's a subtle alchemy whose bilious depths are churned by the truth you loved to hate so much, you had it hung and burned. What? Is this Love? What? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Uh... What? Is this love? Your asking fills my heart with fear... What is this love? Perhaps I haven't made it clear? What is this? Love? Could anything but love explain the hours I've spent upon my knees exploring this, your vile domain? What is this? Love? Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! Uh... My love stuffs little orphans in a sack of writhing need to be traded for free memberships on the altar of your greed. Don't mind the ones gone missing, or that some wash down the drain; There's a new crop every morning from Slovenia and Ukraine... What? Is this Love? What? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Uh... My love it flutters softly with the scent of dollar bills to caress the things inside you that the joy of power thrills. My love wraps all around you like two wet and slippery eels 'til it's driven through your eyeballs like a pair of six-inch heels. What? Is this Love? What? Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it? Uh... What? Is this love? I guess it doesn't hurt to ask. What is this love? Would you rather I remove the mask? What is this? Love? You're asking the wrong questions, dove... The question's not "What is this love?" but "What is this love of?" What is this? Love? Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! Aaahhh...This was supposed to be an exorcism, but maybe I just hauled all the furniture out on the lawn, lit a bonfire, and fanned the flames. Sung in Am to a 94 BPM click track and plodding synth bass line included in the stems. Only NSFW in the mildest way. ---------- Confirmation Now I don't need a hundred-inch television with a hundred-twenty channels of sports. And I don't need a thirty-two ounce steak, and I sure don't need it served by a girl in shorts. I don't need some pretty twenty-something trophy so the other guys can see that I'm a genuine stud. And I don't need a forty-eight-room mansion on the Cape to compensate for our pedestrian blood. I don't need a chain of radio stations to influence the answers to my own opinion poll.... I just need confirmation there's a little bit of poetry in my soul. Now I don't need to tell a roomful of people that my '97 Jaguar is an orgasm on wheels. And I don't need to drop in on some daytime talk show just to have the world imagine how my perfect nose job feels. I don't need to buy anyone's affection and I sure don't need to marry some pathetic millionaire. And I don't need a twenty-four hour erection and I sure don't need to go to bed with anyone who'd care. I don't need another course of medication; these demons won't submit to pharmaceutical control.... I just need confirmation there's a little bit of poetry left in my soul. Now I don't need much more than I've got. My neighbor doesn't own a single thing I covet. I don't want much more than a lot. I'd rather have better (and a lot less of it). Now I don't need my own memorial expressway just so someday someone somewhere might remember my last name. And I don't need an eponymic three-day weekend to make schoolboys scribble essays that exaggerate my fame. I don't need to see my face up on some billboard pushing TV news or soap operas or scented aftershave. And I don't need my name put up on any buildings and I won't need any monument to decorate my grave. I don't need to be a media sensation or the latest heir apparent to the king of rock and roll.... I just need confirmation there's a little bit of poetry in my soul. Now I don't need much more than I've got. My neighbor doesn't own a single thing I covet. I can't take much more of this rot. I'd rather have better (and a lot less of it).T. Jefferson Parker introduces the notion of The Unknown Thing in his novel [i]Silent Joe[/i]. This cries out for some real piano or something. My cue track is MIDI utility cheese. Intro starts out at 112, ramps to 120, snaps into 138 and stays there until the final ritard.With so many negatives to focus on, I thought maybe a little positivity was in order. What I'm fighting for hasn't changed. Raw vocal flac is included in zip with the rudimentary accompaniment. ---------- Turn Up the Peace (cc)BY D A Ayer 2018-08-22 Plug in your love and turn up the peace. Let joy build up in your soul until you're whole. Then give it release. Open up compassion like a sweet new wine and leave the taste of power to go sour as it withers on the winter vine. Drink only kindness and once you've had your fill just listen to the rhythm that'll start in your heart until you can't sit still. Go out and dance with the people from both far and near. Wear a smile on your face and watch it displace mistrust and fear. And teach all your children how to sing this song whenever someone's greed and spite try to turn their rights to wrong. Plug in your love. Turn up the peace. Crank up the joy and fill your soul until you're whole and find release. Plug in your love and turn the peace up loud. Drown out the whine of "I, me, and mine" as we stand tall and proud.03:09 of mouth-watering goodness. Sunday, July 29, 2012 saw us sampling the metallic infrastructure around the former SUN campus on Lafayette Street. This is a lamppost just north of Fairway Glen Drive on the east side of Lafayette Street. Nothing is touching this lamppost besides my microphone. The wind, cars passing by, and occasional jets overhead are making all the noise. Cross-posted at [url=http://wikigong.com/cchost/files/Mr_Yesterday/232]wikigong.com[/url] and [url=http://soundcloud.com/gongmaster/sc-agnews-10-lamppost]SoundCloud[/url].This is a contact recording of the Golden Gate Bridge on a clear day, February 26,2011. It's the inner of the two safety handrails that follow the main cable on the east side of the bridge, tapped where it emerges after passing through through the southern concrete pier. The original .WAV has been normalized but otherwise this is the raw thing. Turn on your sub to get the full rumble. [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/Sprezza]Sprezza[/url] was along for the photo credits. Cross-posted at [url=http://wikigong.com/cchost/files/Mr_Yesterday/131]wikiGong.com[/url].A little on-hold concrète. This one was captured entirely on the Xperia X10, but with the piezo mic sandwiched between my wired telephone headset and ear. There’s time to get creative while on hold.... More about the Xperia X10, TapeMachine, etc. on our [url=http://www.wikigong.com/wiki/Tools]wiki page[/url].Raw recording out by the Alviso slough in south SF bay. The walking path just west of the RR tracks borders the “little slough” and is on the SJC takeoff flight path on clear days. It was a high-wind day and even with the windguard on the recorder the movement of air was inescapable. I decided to go with it. This is entirely raw except for token normalization and truncation: the file begins and ends at zero crossings so it can be played as a loop.Pendeltåg (commuter train) platform at Årstaberg, Sweden, just south of Stockholm. Hand-held Sony PCM-D50 with windscreen. Announcements, seagulls, two trains arriving, one phone call. Original 2010-06-09 ca 0600 CET, 96k 24b stereo. Volume normalized in post-processing, converted to MP3. Cross-posted @ [url=http://wikigong.com/cchost/files/Mr_Yesterday/16]wikiGong.com[/url].The [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Gatos_Creek_Trail#Mileage_and_Elevation]Los Gatos Creek Trail[/url] passes about ten feet beneath Highway 17 in Campbell, making a little cement box about 100 feet long by 30 wide, but only about 10 high. These were taken from the middle, the first facing south (right is southbound, left northbound traffic), the second facing north.A mantra becoming an instrumental. Not my cleanest hour: way too many fans in the studio. Ah, well. FLACs include just the pella.Stereo MIDI piano. Generated by an Oberkorn 3 sequencer and Moog Etherwave theremin controlling VCO and VCA on an AS-1 analogue synth, its output then routed through a Sonuus G2M guitar-to-MIDI converter, thence to the Yamaha S80. Dedicated, with reverence, to [url=http://www.otherminds.org/shtml/Nancarrow.shtml]Conlon Nancarrow[/url].Text from the SoundWalk 2010 performance of SoNoGram, recorded using a Rode NT-1A and Sony PCM-D50, trimmed and normalized using DP6.Text from the SoundWalk 2010 performance of SoNoGram, recorded using a Rode NT-1A and Sony PCM-D50. Normalized, spliced, and trimmed using DP6 to align with [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/40127]the spoken version[/url], until near the end.Insects at night in Arrow Rock, MO, USA. Cross-posted @ [url=http://wikigong.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=An_Arrow_Rock_Nocturne]wikigongcom[/url].A capella for my blues version of the [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/40127]spoken text[/url], with two more verses. 4 bar lead-in, 23-bar verse (or think 9 in 4/4 + 5 in 2/4?), with 10-bar chorus. I've added a second mix and stems for what I'll call the straight version, just MIDI instruments (locked to 144 BPM until the last few bars) and some slight rework of my over-worked rubato. Looking for real instrumentalists (Hat tip to [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/NiGiD]NiGiD[/url] for pushing the envelope!) to cover...I can always do the voice over. Tune and lyrics 2012, extended from the original SoNoGram spoken text of October 2010. The current full version: -------------- The Dream West Born in the middle, the center, the crossroads, you could go any which way: north, south, east, west; any way at all; a choice, a dream, a boast, a threat; now, how could you fail to go some other way, some way or other, somewhere else? Draw just one arrow: that's all you get; life is the flight it describes. Pull back... aim well... steady...now, release! Away it flies and out of sight: gone. When you look back upon the path it traced you'll see it's narrow and precise. [chorus] Born in the middle...ah...ah...ah... Born in the middle! Ha...ha! Born in the middle...ah...ah...ah... Born in the middle! Ha...ha! Born in the middle, between now and then, time's one-dimensional line draws you forward into each new day; your memory comes stumbling behind. How could you fail to seek some way around the stone that's waiting for your name? [chorus]Joining a host of others doin' this track to death. I needed two extra verses, so it's not only slow, it's long. Lyrics are about as pretty as a scar, too. Thanks, AB, for the excuse! ---------- It's been a long day, baby, Though it comes around each year, And it's been a long time, baby, But this day still comes each year: The day one May you took my soul And sliced it ear to ear. You bled me out and tossed me Like a dog a pair of shoes And told me it was you or My own life I'd have to choose. I could die upon your altar Or crawl home to sing the blues. You know they say they found King Richard Buried underneath a car. They knew him by his twisted spine Under all the dirt and tar. Well, when I'm dead and scattered Friends will tell me by the scar. It's been a long time, baby, And that scar's got hard to find. Most days I think it's all healed up, But then it itches in my mind And on sleepless nights reminds me Of the dreams I left behind. It's been a long time, baby, Since I had a dream to lose. Yeah, it's been a long time, baby, Since I've had a life to choose. It's been a year or two of Sundays Since you made me sing the blues.This started out as a little test of Reason/Record and turned into intermission material for Long Beach [url=http://soundwalk.org/soundwalk-2010.html]SoundWalk 2010[/url]. It's a loop crafted of samples from the Golden Gate Bridge and various bronze statues around Sweden realized on Propellerhead's NN19 sampling module. Another cross-post from [url=http://wikigong.com/cchost/files/Mr_Yesterday/49]wikiGong.com[/url].Is this in the spirit? If not, OK to de-tag it. As you can tell, I'm still a bit PO'ed about things here in the USA, but I'm convinced they are contributory to the problem at large. It's here as a pell, but I included the rough mix as the preview because I needed the rock feel to do it. Multitrack MIDI file included with the STEMs. Key of G. Rise up, y'all! Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2020-02-05 ---------- She slaved three whole years adding fuel to the pyre, then Miss America set herself on fire: tired of soaking in a tub full of bile and spite, she asked the devil himself if he’d give her a light; [she] left a shapely stain on his bathroom wall for him to ogle as he waited for the ash to fall. Rise up! She’s gonna rise up! Rise up! The dragon lies seething on top of his hoard and tries to torch every thing that he still can’t afford since gold’s the only coin of the realm he rules with his army of fear-stoked, slack-brained fools splashing cans of hatred over dreams of yore when men owned men and called Justice a whore. Rise up! We’re all gonna rise up! Rise up! Now nothing lasts forever, not even this fat, reeking excuse for a foul-mouthed kiss on the lips of a Liberty gagged and bound while Truth’s body is dragged through the streets of town. So let’s hammer the nose off this emperor’s bust ‘cause he can’t burn a phoenix down, it’ll just... rise up! Rise up! Rise up!This is just [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/41949]King Richard's Blues[/url] with the harp track finally added. This took a while as it's a strange new amalgam for me: good old Sure hand-helds (520DX and SM58) but DAW amp and distortion (Komplete's Guitar Rig 5) in place of my old '80's era Peavey tube amp. I've reposted the stems since I trimmed about 4+ annoying measures of silence from the beginning and tweaked my rather clumsy compression settings (probably not enough).Heard this guitar bit at 2 AM and the first and last verse wrote themselves before 3. Obsessed about it the rest of the day and here it is. [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/Javolenus]Javolenus[/url], thanks for a fantastic ride, hope you find it OK. Note May 28, 2013: Replaced the vox FLAC file. Thanks, [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/NiGiD]NiGiD[/url]! Also expect a new preview with the guitar a little hotter. ---------- Mockingbird [i]aka[/i] Another Beautiful Day [1] The sun came out again Like it almost always does Another beautiful day Scroungin' 'round the bottom of my wallet Found a part of a song A couple of jokes Somebody's number But I guess now I'm never gonna call it Walkin' to the corner I thought I heard a mockingbird Singin' his silly old ripoff songs That ain't even worth a listen I'm just bangin' my head Against the wall and wishin' I could find a way To make it all feel better [2] Sittin' in the coffee place Lookin' out the window I'm watchin' that homeless guy who works this corner, He says to call him Otis He's got a handmade sign Lays it out on the sidewalk And folks who don't look down walk right on by And act like they don't even notice But sometimes I'll read that sign It says somethin' different every day And three days out of five what it says Is pretty damn funny And I talked to Otis just the other day Didn't have any money But I found out he and I Have the same last name [3] The sun came out again I guess Otis made his nickel Packed up his little paper shrine and shuffled Down the street and on across the avenues And later that afternoon His spot was taken up by an old blind guy Who sets up a chair in the doorway And sings the blues He's got an old guitar Strings probably cost him more than his suit It's a chipped-up National job With this huge resonator And whenever I see him over there It's like a joy generator He's singin' this sad old shit But it sure makes me feel happy [4] Walked down to the river And watched the water flowin' by The ripples and the eddies, I'm thinkin' Maybe that's all there is to livin' Some are rich and some are poor Me I'm just a little down on my luck Don't have so little there isn't somethin' That I could still be givin' I got a trick or two In my pocket and up my sleeve I'm just not done searchin' yet For my own Nirvana But maybe this is as good as it gets And if we wait por la mañana We might not like the trade We made in the end [5] The sun came out again Like it almost always does Another beautiful day And I'm so glad that I'm still here in it and walkin' Got a start on a song A couple new jokes Somebody's number And in a minute maybe we'll be talkin' Walked to the corner And then I heard the mockingbird He's singin' his beautiful patchwork song So I just stopped to listen I'm runnin' my hand Against the wall and wishin' I can just find a way To keep it all togetherI fell hard for the opening of airtone's disOrder, in part because it reminded me so strongly of the Fahey/Cul de Sac album "The Epiphany of Glenn Jones," which I wasn't prepared for when I first acquired it, either. So I took that as an excuse for a theme, and Fahey's late life poverty as the organizing principle and set out down whatever road that was. I was after dynamic range and a little drama. In the end, Vulpes' piano wraith carries Blind Joe's soul away from this mortal plane. The rain was found on [url=http://www.turbulence.org/soundtransit]Sound Transit[/url], which has a lot of interesting field recordings published with minimal restrictions. I hope that's not an issue as the site doesn't seem to be "in the family" at this point. Stems are posted start-aligned for easy dissection and rearrangement. Thanks, airtone, and I hope you like it.Saturday July 20 was spent capturing as much of the Long Beach Gerald Desmond Bridge as possible using contact microphones, hand-held recorders, video, and film. This will shortly become part of wikiGong's [url=http://soundwalk.org/soundwalk-2013.html]SoundWalk 2013[/url] installation appearing October 5. This is the last lamppost encountered as you walk westward across the bridge, just before the sidewalk (such as it is) ends on Terminal Island.... File normalized using Audacity, otherwise raw from WAV. A preview mix in Ableton Live 9 is also posted on the [url=http://wikigong.com/2013/that-time-of-year-again/]wikiGong.com blog[/url]. Stems are [url=http://wikigong.com/cchost/files/Mr_Yesterday/239]available[/url], too. Thanks, [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/doxent]Doxent Zsigmond[/url] for the BPM analysis, too: the whole bridge seems to be bouncing along between 105 and 109!An ironic treatment of the phrase "perception is reality," especially as used to justify disingenuous marketing or automatic software "enhancement." A capella file is dry voice, normalized, and with the intervals between verses scrubbed of throat-clearing and floorboard creaks. MIDI-piano gospel cue track included in the "rough mix" file for grins. The FLAC is aligned with the cue track, so there is a bunch more silence at the beginning in that sample. Plenty of space that can be filled or trimmed. More under [url=http://ccmixter.org/howididit/44165]How I Did It[/url].... As usual, feel free to borrow the words as well as the recording: ========== [1] Looking at the sky I see the usual cerulean hue But when I take a photograph I need a more electric blue. Tan my tone so folks will know I've been outdoors and having fun But smooth away the blemishes that come from aging in the sun. Immaculate perception is my personal reality. The world's a pale reflection of my Superficiality. [2] Listening to your voices I can't help but to reflect on mine: It's something for the ladies, like a glass of after dinner wine. The effects in my channel help to fatten up and smooth my tone 'til honey drips off every word like pure distilled testosterone. Your 'bated breath's a testament to my raw masculinity. The world can't hold a candle to my Superficiality. [3] Speaking of my resume--there's forty-seven posts on line! If you'd prefer a CV, send me yours and I'll revert with mine. The mountains I have climbed, both real and virtual, they document With pictures of the famous places I've stopped by to pitch my tent. From "Better Homes and Gardens" to the "Architectural Review" My Superficiality is always right in front of you. [4] Thinking 'bout the world I'd like to turn it up a notch or two To make a better background for the Instagrams I'll send to you. The colors will be brighter and the video a lot more cool; This is my life we're talkin' here, not some pathetic ass-hat tool's! Immaculate perception is my personal reality. The world is but a shadow of my Superficiality.[url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/44165]Personal Reality[/url], revisited and liberally overdubbed in keeping with its self-involved theme. Demo is the full overdub mix just to give the idea. Preview and vox file are just the clean pell at this faster tempo, minimally trimmed. Zip has all the dry voice files unembellished and untrimmed, along with the two rather robotic MIDI keyboard parts. Lyrics and longer intro [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/44165]over there[/url]. This version dedicated to [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/CiggiBurns]CiggiBurns[/url] for awe-inspiring vocal quality and to [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/stellarartwars]stellarartwars[/url] for attitude.The usual drill: use it if you like it. Notes on Feb 21, 2024: First 7 bars are @ 104bpm, but all else is @ 108 until the ritard at the end, which affects only my click track instrumentals. I've updated the bpm tag. Notes on March 16, 2014: Replaced the preview and rough mix with a new performance flirting with a lower key. Practice helped. There's a bit of low background noise in the vox track in verse 4, but I was much happier with the delivery and my pitch. Old stems are still here for convenience and history. ---------- Monuments Pharaoh built a pyramid. You could see it for a mile. The next king razed it to the ground so he could watch the Nile. You say our love’s a monument— that kinda makes me smile— ‘cause nothing’s quite so permanent it won’t go out of style. You've got a closet full of shoes you hardly ever wear and though you say you love each one I can't believe you care. I hesitate to bring this up, but you're living in denial.... The day you wore them from the store those shoes went out of style. I know a guy who likes to try on every single one: a shirt and belt, a suit and tie; I guess he thinks it's fun. But in the end he always buys the latest on the pile. It might not fit, but surely it is in the latest style. I've loved you now these many years. Another I won't find to share my laughter and my tears. You're always on my mind. Now when I'm onto something good I hold it tight a while 'cause often when I turn around it's just come back in style. Pharaoh built a pyramid. You could see it for a mile. The next king razed it to the ground so he could watch the Nile. You say our love’s a monument— that kinda makes me smile— Let's not craft some epitaph. Let's just go out in style.A rather involved sequencer-driven piece that yielded a lot of 04'30" samples. Preview is a mix but STEMs are clean. These are only the four string voices (though each has a very extended range). Locked at 120 BPM throughout.A rather involved sequencer-driven piece that yielded a lot of 04'30" samples. Preview is a mix (with the strings) but STEMs are clean. These are the four synth voices (separate takes) and a quad MIDI file in case you want to drive other stuff. Locked at 120 BPM throughout.Update October 24: On reflection, I messed up posting this as a pell. I expect the parts that folks will actually want to reuse are the synth-delay tracks (the ones that sound like wheezing calliope monkeys with a voice-over) so I've swapped previews. Happy to repost separately in future, or take advice, whatever, on pells vs. samples. -- Y ---------- This resulted from a brief text conversation on the night of the last lunar eclipse. The full mix is posted over @ [url=https://soundcloud.com/gongmaster/blood-moon-for-bankers]SoundCloud[/url]. ---------- Blood Moon for Bankers Five nines...six sigma... We're building it, building it up! We're talking it, taking it, faking, shaking it, making it up! There's gonna be a big moon, a full moon, a blood moon at midnight tonight. It's gonna rise up, up in the east. It's gonna blind you with its cold, clear light! We're building it, building it up. So big! Too big to fail! Hey there, teacher! Is your pension alright? Wall Street's quakin'. There's a blood moon tonight! Hey there, preacher! Are your pews packed tight? Is the congregation shakin'? Are they seein' the light? There's gonna be a big moon, a full moon, a blood moon tonight! Blood moon.... So red! So red! Too big to fall! Five nines...six sigma... We're building it, building it up!This is a more structured (and shorter) version of a long synth test I posted on [url=https://soundcloud.com/gongmaster/back-in-the-saddle]SoundCloud[/url] over the summer 2014. I had intended to post those stems, but had also let the whole studio tootle on too long and ended up with large files to wade through. I finally got back to trimming it down into something more interesting and a bit friendlier to remix, intentionally heavy on the bass and subsonics. Sorry the delay elements were not recorded entirely separately and that the loop track stems each aggregate several channels. This was due to separation of the studio recording setup, and I carelessly ran out of discrete tracks. Live and learn.A meditation on a pattern generated by my recent soft-sequencer experiment in Pd, and on the passing of things.I was tempted by Music for Healing but still engaged in my own...healing, investigations, whatever. That led to...musing. The vocal track is dry and clean except for a few creaks and rustles, with silent intervals deleted. My apologies for the headphone bleed: it is faint but noticeable as a sort of metallic ring, usually at the end of a stanza. It can be trimmed or gated pretty easily. Lyrics are as usual available under the same terms as the tune. ---------- [I've] been thinking about my misspent youth. I never really had one...that's my mother's own truth. Didn't run wild getting' high and gettin' laid... sowed no wild oats, never failed to make the grade... and now it's gone, it's gone forever: my misspent youth. My misspent youth! I'm dreaming about my misspent youth. The street fights I avoided. This busted tooth? I was hit right square in the face...by a swimming pool. Came up all gasping for breath, looking like a fool. That was all so long ago, it seems forever: my misspent youth. My misspent youth! So I'm throwing my youth a wake, invited all my friends. Didn't RSVP myself, and now I can't attend. 'cause something came up at the very last minute... I didn't catch on 'til I was neck deep in it... and now I'm going to miss that, too. My misspent youth! I miss it so....Whispered, spoken, and sung. ---------- Quiet Ambition (cc) BY D A Ayer 2018-02-23 I want to write a song so quiet it could creep into church in the middle of the sermon and whisper in your ear until your toes start tapping in a rhythm you feel like the spirit of the Lord. I want to write a song so loud it could blow out the windows of a seven-story building half a mile down the street from a sold-out concert as the lead guitar hits the very first chord. I want to write a song as cold as steel. I want to write a song that burns like fire. I want to write a song as sad as I feel. I want to write a song about desire. I want to write a song so righteous it could empty the pockets of the rich and famous to nourish the souls of the most downtrodden without one drop of blood being shed. I want to write a song so wicked it could melt every bullet in the gun of every soldier and punish every tyrant with a vision of darkness as it curls the hair on the devil's own head. I want to write a song as proud as a piper. I want to write a song that's pious as a priest. I want to write a song that glides like a viper. I want to write a song that howls like a beast. I want to write a song so short. I want to write a song so long. I want to write a song so right. I want to write a song so wrong. I want to write a song that rings like silver. I want to write a song that shines like gold. I want to write a song so new. I want to write a song so old.Straight ahead 80 bars in D minor, 4/4, 100 BPM. Rough mix is just my MIDI piano queue track and chord progressions for deconstruction purposes. --------- I Wasn't Looking I wasn't looking for a partner in crime, or even a friend; [I] wasn't hunting for a band of brothers to stand beside me at the bitter end; [I] wasn't hoping for a father confessor to tell my deepest, darkest secret to; and I sure wasn't looking for any romance when I found you. I was sitting by myself, I had finished my drink, I figured it was time to go... when you walked in just as I stood up and everything started to slow.... I froze for a second as I told myself I had everything under control. Then you looked straight at me, and blew me a kiss...and walked off with my soul. Now I've never believed in El Dorado or that rainbows lead to gold. And I don't go flirtin' with the man behind the curtain who says Fortune favors the bold. I don't go barging out for windmills to battle or charging after dragons to slay. But that one little kiss you blew to me blew all my common sense away. And now I'm living in a world of magic, potions, incantations, and spells. I'm crossing my fingers, tossing salt over my shoulder and coins into wishing wells. I wake up in the night like my fever's just broken. I jump when the clock strikes ten. 'cause now that I'm looking, I'm scared to death that I'm never going to find you again. I'm not looking for a partner in crime, or even a friend; I'm not hunting for a band of brothers to stand beside me at the bitter end; I'm not even hoping for a father confessor to tell my deepest, darkest secrets to; I'm not going looking for anything at all until I've found you.Nothing autobiographical about this one. Started with a tune; lyrics developed around that, then sabotaged the original melody completely. More or less 92 BPM in A minor. ---------- Your Day 2015-May-30 I feel the thunder; [but] I don't smell the rain. I hear the whistle, not the rush of the train. I taste the hot blood from my chin where the razor's marked my skin. Hope you won't see the state I'm in. I taste the wine but still the fruit is bittersweet. I feel the disappointment and can't tell it from defeat. I hear the hot spark on the wire I see between me and your fire. I smell perfume, [but] not desire. I watch the matches [as they] blossom into flame and smell the smoke as each one flickers out again. I hear the verses as they're sung and taste my breath, but hold my tongue. I'd sing myself, but my pride's been stung. I smell the dust the dancers kick up in the air. I see your portrait, but the likeness isn't there. I feel your hand inside the glove and hear bright crystal tap above. I taste champagne, but it's not love. I see the ring but I can't hear the wedding band. I touch our castle as it crumbles into sand and smell the cold breeze blowing through this world that used to taste of you. I'm doing fine, just feeling blue.I guess I'm doing a little cycle about formal occasions.... ---------- Charon (cc)BY 2015-06-16 I shaved my whiskers, tied my tie, wore my best suit— better than I remember ever buying [myself]— aftershave, clean socks, a flower in my hand. But I forgot the pennies.... Boatman, the fare? Two pence. I hadn't got it. Left it on the washstand with my wallet, wedding ring, my favorite watch. Why did I think to wear a tie?This started out as an extra chorus for [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/41708]Confirmation[/url] but was complicated by ambition. Finally I solved that with a raunchy, sloppy harmonica solo. Key signature warning: this is in the key of 60Hz! The bassline is provided by Sears Kenmore model 110.92586210 s/n CE2924633 on US power mains which means we are in a flatted Bn. The harp solo was rendered in Bflat and then pitch-shifted +.8 semitones 'cause I'm sensitive that way. NSFW due to one f-bomb easily replaceable with samples from the prior chorus. The [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/50704]washer[/url] and the [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/50705]beer bottle[/url] recordings are my own. The samples used in the noisescape tracks are from freesound: ---------- Digging1.wav by cameronmusic [url=http://www.freesound.org/people/cameronmusic/sounds/138411/]http://www.freesound.org/people/cameronmusic/sounds/138411/[/url] Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) Excerpted, spliced and looped in Reaper ---------- Working with shovel.wav by Ohrwurm [url=http://www.freesound.org/people/Ohrwurm/sounds/64416/]http://www.freesound.org/people/Ohrwurm/sounds/64416/[/url] CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Excerpted, spliced and looped in Reaper ---------- Tires Squeaking.aif by RutgerMuller [url=http://www.freesound.org/people/RutgerMuller/sounds/104026/]http://www.freesound.org/people/RutgerMuller/sounds/104026/[/url] CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) No changes ---------- Breath_Woman.wav by audione [url=http://www.freesound.org/people/audione/sounds/108160/]http://www.freesound.org/people/audione/sounds/108160/[/url] CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Excerpted, spliced and looped in Reaper ---------- Road Works by nebuloousflynn [url=http://www.freesound.org/people/nebulousflynn/sounds/269046/]http://www.freesound.org/people/nebulousflynn/sounds/269046/[/url] CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Excerpted and trimmed in Audacity ---------- Sound FX - Jackhammer.wav by fauxpress [url=http://www.freesound.org/people/fauxpress/sounds/42097/]http://www.freesound.org/people/fauxpress/sounds/42097/[/url] CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Excerpted, spliced and looped in Reaper ---------- Gunfire by qubodup [url=http://www.freesound.org/people/qubodup/sounds/205588/]http://www.freesound.org/people/qubodup/sounds/205588/[/url] CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Excerpted and trimmed in Audacity ---------- siren_med.wav by UncleSigmund [url=http://www.freesound.org/people/UncleSigmund/sounds/117120/]http://www.freesound.org/people/UncleSigmund/sounds/117120/[/url] CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Trimmed in Audacity ---------- checkout.wav by labailey [url=http://www.freesound.org/people/labailey/sounds/79030/]http://www.freesound.org/people/labailey/sounds/79030/[/url] CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Filtered and trimmed aggressively in Audacity ---------- Thanks to [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/AirFlow]AirFlow[/url] for the freesound attribution format!Field recording of my 20-year old Sears Kenmore model 110.92586210 s/n CE2924633 using my trusty Sony PCM-D50 digital recorder. Be aware this is in the key of 60 Hz. US AC power mains translate into a flatted B-natural "key". Easily pitch-shifted up to Bn or down to Bf.Close-up recording of the bottle-top pop and decanting of a bottle of Hollows and Fentimans Ginger Beer into a tall glass. Recorded with a Sony PCM-D50 using built-in stereo microphones.This is a bit of happy serendipity that came about as I was working on something that turned out to be taking much longer. Mic work is a bit rougher than usual, plenty of room and boom noise, but I didn't want to redo the performance. The mix preview tramples that noise right down; feel free to do the same. MIDI file channels are mapped to my studio setup so start high: Lead(8), Rhythm(9), Bass(10), Keyboard(11), and Drums(12). Uncharacteristically straight-ahead 136 bpm. Let the Walls Come Down Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2023-01-31 Let in the hope. Pour out the love from down below or up above. No need to worry where it’s from. It doesn’t matter, just get you some. Let in the hope. Pour out the love and let the walls come down. Let in the hope and spread the joy to every girl and every boy and those who don’t use “him” or “her”: y'all make us stronger than we were. Let in the hope and spread the joy… Let the walls come down. There’s no place left in this world for hate. When you see it coming, don’t hesitate or run away. Just turn around, open your arms and squeeze it down until it has no chance to escape again. Then let the walls come down. Let in the hope. Pour out the love from down below or up above. No need to worry where it’s from. It doesn’t matter, just get you some. Let in the hope. Pour out the love and let the walls come down.A little composition exploiting my latest constructions in [url=https://puredata.info/]Pure Data[/url]. In 7/8....It's not that many pages, in a dictionary.... Dry vox flac in the downloads. Lyrics (cc)BY 2015 ---------- Well, I went to the top of the mountain, to see the wise man there. I asked him why this world we live in is filled with [so much] sorrow and care. And he looked me over and up and down and then he shook his head real slow.... He said, "Son, you've come to the wrong man. That's one thing I [sure] don't know." Well, I stayed up there on the mountain [a while] to see what I could see and I looked out over this whole wide world in its awesome majesty. But then my gaze fell down to the city and the fires and the smoke below, and I shook my head and asked myself, "Now where did our garden go?" So when I came down off of the mountain and walked back to my street I talked with all my friends and neighbors and anyone else I'd meet and said "I don't know how it [all] got this way, but I know one thing for sure: if we want it to get any better, we're the only source of [the] cure." 'Cause if you climb to the top of that mountain and you speak to the wise man there, once you ask him why this world we live in is filled with [all this] sorrow and care, and once he looks you over and shakes his head and [he] tells you that he just don't know he'll say "That's not the important question, my friend, ask 'How does my garden grow?'" Now, some of us are just too busy, and a few of us just don't care, and some are fighting battles so hard they haven't got anything to spare, but if we just put our hands together and set aside our fears the children of our children's children might thank us in a couple of hundred years. So go [on up] to the top of the mountain. See what you can see. If you run into that wise old man up there, please say hello from me. But I won't be going with you--not in this, or any year-- 'cause everything you see needs doing up there, can only be done down here.Updated Jan. 3, 2017 with the trf backtribution... [big]Apologies in advance[/big] My hope for the holidays is a little editorial forgiveness for appearing to remix my own stuff. I fell in love with texasradiofish's instrumental work in [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/texasradiofish/55199]Yesterday's Up to Us[/url] but wanted to try something a little different. So this is a remix of that bass and piano STEM only, with a reperformance of the vocal line added. [big]Odd Man Out?[/big] I often throw in extra bars in performance, especially in pells. Usually it's to catch my breath, though sometimes it doubles as dramatic effect. My 12 bar blues are almost always 13 or 14 bars per verse; my 8 bar progressions end up in 9 bar phrases or, worse, as in the case of [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/55189]Up to Us[/url], there's an extra bar "between" each 16-bar verse for phrasing. So one motivation for this was to do justice to the 16-bar loop. When remixing me, you can usually get rid of these bars by assuming I used a quarter-note pickup and then added 3 beats at the end of the verse to leave a little slack. Here, I just unperformed it. I also got interested in the pitch adjustment. B is an odd key for me, right at the top and bottom of my natural range. I've included a pell for each in the STEMs, one tenor (used here), one baritone. I thought about mixing them both, but liked it more spare. Finally, it ended up so much more elegant than with my original mechanical accompaniment I just wanted to post it. Hope (for the holidays) that satisfies convention.Full mix and instrumental tracks for Tools of the Trade. For lyrics, see [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/56364]the pell[/url]. This is my Net Neutrality submission, it just got totally out of hand and took a while to corral into an actual piece so I missed all the deadlines. Oh, well. Alternating 5/8 (8 bars) and 6/8 (8 bars) in D. Trust the drummer.Raw vocals for [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/56363]Tools of the Trade[/url]. These are comps, since I got a little behind the beat in verse 4. Plenty of room and throat noise for you to engineer away. This is the second (verso) of a two-part piece imagined as the centerpiece of a musical theater number, "Spectrum". It's alternating 8 bars of 5/8 with 8 bars of 6/8 in Dm, just to keep it punchy. ZIP includes room and close-up mic positions. ---------- Tools of the Trade (verso) Lyrics (cc)BY 12017 D A Ayer No man owns the sky or the colors in my eye. Could I be so blind [as] to offer up my mind? We're just tools of the trade, always ready to hand: [the] mere knives in the drawer with no grasp of the plan. Chaos scrolls unseen 'cross the bottom of my screen as each new talking head proclaims that Truth is dead. We're the ink on the page hurling shock and surprise: the black on the white; both the truth and the lies. Novus ordo seclorum! Connoisseurs of fact suborn my every act, inciting my desire with alchemizing fire. We're just tools of the trade lying ready to hand: [the] mere knives in the drawer with no grasp of the plan. Fortunes rise with time inviting me to climb though every step I gain is paved with others' pain. We're just tools of the trade always ready to hand: mere knives in the drawer with no grasp of the plan. We're the ink on the page hurling shock and surprise: the black on the white; both the truth and the lies. Novus ordo... Novus ordo seclorum! How could I be so blind?Contribution no. 1 to [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/Per]Timberman[/url]'s challenge of a duet with [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/speck]Speck[/url]. This is the "all me" part of the duet. More to come but surely don't wait.... Lyrics are a variation of previous work [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/50582]Charon[/url], which may become a cycle: ---------- Left My Slippers aka Charon ([url=http://ccmixter.org/files/economix/36253]route 17[/url] version) (cc)BY 2016-04-05 I shaved my whiskers, tied my tie, wore my best suit— better than I remember ever buying [myself].... Starched shirt, monogrammed cuff links, a flower in my hand. Left my slippers by the door. The garlands in your hair beckon me on.Another love song of sorts from the pile of old projects not hitherto recorded. I promise I'll stop with the Valentines pells now.... Key of Love (in F again) has been an excuse to work in a higher register. There's just a little electronics whine and room ring in the raw vox STEM but it's easily filtered out. I've been trying to leave lots of headroom on the mic and reduce artifacts like breath pops; the tradeoff is hearing my hardwalled studio. Lyrics (cc)BY 2013 D A Ayer ---------- Probably Shouldn't [1] I love you, baby...although I probably shouldn't! I tried to leave you, once...well, you know I just couldn't. My love is strong...you know I can't restrain it. I don't believe it's wrong even though I can't explain it. If you believe it's a sin I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive it. We only get this life we're in, I think we owe it to ourselves to live it. [2] I love you, baby, and though I can't command it, I want to squeeze you, sugar, 'til you tell me that you just can't stand it. When we're apart you know I'm driven to distraction; I get a heavy heart thinkin' 'bout a little midnight action. If you didn't exist my mind would do gymnastics trying to invent you. And on Sunday morning I pump my fist and thank the Lord above that he sent you. [3] I love you, baby, and though I don't recommend it, the rule that keeps me from you might not break, but I think I'm gonna bend it. If you want to drop by, you know my back door's open; Just tell a little white lie (It might not work, but again, here's hopin'). If I don't get to see you real soon I just might lose my capacity for reason. You're like huntin' duck, my dear, some say it tastes a little better when it's not in season.... [4: reprise 1]Just a feeling. As usual, posted the pell with accompaniment but raw stems are provided (cc)BY. Dedicated, with great fondness, to [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/speck/profile]Speck[/url].Replaced mix with new file: less me, more Per, more Speck. Earlier post is now alternate. This concept was spawned by a [url=http://ccmixter.org/reviews/speck/53466]discussion[/url] between [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/Per]timberman[/url] and [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/speck]Speck[/url] where duets were proposed. Verses one and two are Frankenstein renditions of several of their songs, stitched together to create new poems and tunes.... Vocal samples are new for the most part since [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/53515]Left My Slippers[/url], with me doing one vocal overdub after the other like successive passes through a copy machine. The stems are largely resamples, but painstakingly time-aligned so I went ahead and posted them, too. New lyrics (see [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/economix/36253]Route 17[/url] for [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/economix/profile]economix[/url]) ---------- (1. timberman, word-sliced) The night flies sometimes like the moon: silent and low. Gravity's dance like my heart: it circles in time. Lying heavy with darkness, the sidewalks sound my soul. Stumbling slightly in the sun, the flame I know so well, empty of fear. (2. Speck, word-sliced) Live in the moment like you do, crazy and fun. Nobody's here, bodhisattva! Ain't nothin' but show. Long gone, no one can answer the question, only you. Could be happy, might be blue. Comparatively speaking, all in your head. (3. Mr. Y, Charon/Route 17) I shaved my whiskers, tied my tie, wore my best suit— better than I remember ever buying [myself].... Starched shirt, monogrammed cufflinks, a flower in my hand. Left my slippers by the door. The garlands in your hair beckon me on.The 2016 May Day Secret Mixter delivered gurdonark to my doorstep. I have now explored the [url=http://gurdonark.blogspot.com/]"weirdbient"[/url] ouevre as well as some very useful field recordings over on [url=https://www.freesound.org/]freesound[/url]. Those used here are: [url=http://www.freesound.org/people/gurdonark/sounds/31451/]31451__gurdonark__hangingbell_sample.wav[/url] (cc)BY 2007 by gurdonark [url=http://www.freesound.org/people/gurdonark/sounds/31839/]31839__gurdonark__Birdsong_down_a_Chimney.wav[/url] (cc)BY 2007 by gurdonark ---------- Doing a little research, I was rewarded with [url=http://www.prairieghosts.com/gurdon.html]this[/url] and thought, why not? With a little more serious attention I may clean up the hymn created for the choir in this piece, Not for Sale. But here are the lyrics if wanted: ---------- Not for Sale (cc)BY 2016 D A Ayer It's not for sale... not for sale... this song is not for sale It can't be bought though you can borrow, carry home and sing tomorrow, find it changed by joy or sorrow. Still... This song is not for sale. It's not for sale... not for sale... this heart is not for sale It can't be owned though freely given, shared or taken, cared for, shriven. Might be stolen, even broken. Still... This heart is not for sale.Slow blues in F. Dedicated (with apologies and great affection to all the girls I might have had in mind while singing it) to [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mose_Allison]Mose Allison[/url] (1927-2016). Lyrics (cc)BY 2016 D A Ayer: ---------- A life that's not worth living is the one without regret-- at least, that's what they tell me, though I haven't reckoned yet how I'll ever quite forgive myself for sitting out the dance: ['cause] I never stopped to love you when first I had the chance. I told you I was taken, that another owned my heart, and I built a wall between us to be sure we'd grow apart. With my loyalty and passion I could never reconcile, that you'd never asked to own me, just to love me for a while. Now certain things are meant for us--at least I tell myself-- and those that aren't, I set aside, or leave them on the shelf. And I truly hope you're happy with the way you've come to be and that you'd smile if ever you should chance to think of me. Sometimes at night I wonder if I'll hear your voice again. But this world I've built revolves around the choices where and when I've stumbled, so I miss you, and our never-was romance. I'll be loving you forever though I never took the chance. Life's often off the menu, an all or nothing bet. If you never risk the limit you'll never know what you might get. So I'll never quite forgive myself for sitting out the dance: I should have bet my life and loved you while I only had the chance.This has been through the wash from '20s pop to some overly straight jazz forms until settling into some sort of blues in G. 20 bar verse and 8 bar chorus, not sure why; MIDI walking bass added in the preview to help with that. Lyrics (cc)BY 2013 D A Ayer: ---------- [1] If I could wish these chains away I'd love you every night and day from close nearby. You needn't fear I'd ever go away, my dear. But you've been gone these many years. I've cried a hundred thousand tears, and now I write a line or two each time I stop to think of you a thousand (thousand) songs away. [C1] They say when love is true, it’s blind; I’d like to think it’s so. But since you've left me far behind I’m really not so sure, you know. [2] Some day while walking down the street I’ll wonder, should we chance to meet, what you might do as I walk by: will you look up to meet my eye? Or by some far exotic shore were I to knock upon your door would you invite me in for tea or leave me stranded helplessly a thousand (thousand) songs away? [C2] A simple love affair, I’ve heard, is common as a dime. My love for you’s a rarer bird: not quite extinct, just hard to find…. [R] If I could wish my chains away I'd love you every night and day from close nearby. You needn't fear I'd ever go away, my dear, a thousand (thousand) songs away.Poetry jam with Snowflake on Rumi Emily Richards on piano unreal_dm on bongos Vocal stems and lyrics now posted as [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/55905]Here Comes the Snow[/url].My "half" of the vocals and lyrics for [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/55902]Ubiquitous Now[/url], my remix of [url=http://beta.ccmixter.org/people/snowflake]Snowflake[/url] and [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/unreal_dm]unreal_dm[/url], in case you'd like to repurpose them. Patience: there's a few bars of nothing at the head. Four STEMs are all from one continuous take: two different mics (SM58 and NT-1), each raw and processed (iZotope Nectar). Preview is the processed NT-1 track. ---------- Here Comes the Snow (cc)BY 2017-04-16 D A Ayer Here comes the snow. It's drifting gently through the night. It vanishes between your gaze and me. Yet when you wake up snow's the only thing you see. Here comes the snow... Here comes the snow. It drops more softly than a tear from Heaven, though it lacks the wings to fly. Yet once it's fallen snow's as vast as all the sky. Here comes the snow... Here comes the snow: an omnipresent autograph... a touch of snow...marks all my favorite photographs... Here comes the snow. It's quiet as a whisper now. You have to hold your breath to hear the sound. Yet in the morning snow breathes silence all around. Here comes the snow... You can't outrun the snow... Here comes the snow. It covers up the world I know and hides its dust and ashes for a day. Then in a little while it all just melts away. Here comes the snow... Here comes the snow!RIP Dick Gregory (1932 – 2017) This is a sort of hymn...in triolets, no less. Also in Fm, sorry.* It's a bit of an apology for [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/55929]Do You Really Believe[/url]. I wasn't real careful with this, just kept doing takes until I had one that was OK. ZIP STEMs include the trimmed, gated mix of the two mono mic files, one close (Røde NT-1A), one picking up a little room (Blue enCore 200). ---------- Arm in Arm (cc)BY D A Ayer 2017-08-21 We're walking arm in arm across this land, matching Freedom's cadence stride for stride. To sweep aside corruption's evil hand we're walking arm in arm across this land. For fifty years uneasy peace did stand, bought by tears both sons and daughters cried. We're walking arm in arm across this land, matching Freedom's cadence stride for stride... We don't accept exception proves the rule that some are born to serve while others rise or that the eye of Providence is cruel. We don't accept exception proves the rule. And he who holds that color makes a fool should let his own religion catechize. We don't accept exception proves the rule: that some are born to serve while others rise. From west to east, then east to west we'll trawl driving spite and hatred to the sea. Into the deep we'll watch it writhe and fall. From west to east, then east to west we'll trawl. When morning sunlight finds the things that crawl out of the shadows of hypocrisy, from west to east, then east to west we'll trawl, driving spite and hatred to the sea. We're marching arm in arm across this land, Freedom's voices shouting side by side. Guarding truth with every heart and hand we're marching arm in arm across this land. Where millions died more millions fight to stand. not to oppose us but to share our pride: "We're marching arm in arm across this land!" Freedom's voices shouting side by side.Mother's Gone Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2017-09-22 Please turn out the kitchen light when you come tip-toe home so late at night. And don't neglect to lock the door. There's no one pickin' up 'round here no more Don't wait up to be tucked in. This time you're really on your own again. There's no one coming back to take your hand. Mother's gone. She never thought that it would end this way, that her body'd keep on going while her mind just slipped away. Mother's gone. Yes, Mother's gone. She's wandered on ahead just like a little child into the old dark wood where the fairy tales run wild. She's taken only scraps of paper scribbled with some names that she thought sounded nice once, long ago. Yes, Mother's gone. Mother's gone. So sit beside her, hold her hand. It isn't she who needs to understand. And if some of her love is left in you today you might just let it back the other way. She'll soon be gone and you'll be left alone. Yes, Mother's gone...One of the brightest lights in my life is fading now, whose steady faith in me has never wavered, though these days there are moments when she can't recall my name. [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/Javolenus/profile]Javolenus[/url], many thanks for this instrumental backdrop and helping me deal with the experience. Lyrics for the taking are posted with [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/56567]the pell[/url].Burning Up (cc)BY D A Ayer 2017-10-08 My house is burning down [while] my world is burning up. Each new sorrow that I drown just overflows my empty cup. I'd be leaving here tomorrow if I had a pair of shoes. I'd be winning every gamble if the bet was me to lose. Truth's fallen out my window. Love followed out door. The things I used to live for aren't around here any more. I'd be searching for an answer if my eyes could stand the light. I'd be begging for forgiveness if I felt I had the right. I've crawled back from the ledge, but my soul's still on the roof. Protesting my own innocence I cannot conjure proof. I'll be living for tomorrow if it gets me through today. I'll be clinging to my dreams while all my reasons slip away. My house is burning down. My world is burning up. Every sorrow that I drown could overflow this empty cup, I'll be leaving here tomorrow and I won't need any shoes, and I won't be disappointed if it doesn't make the news.Land Line (cc)BY 2017 D A Ayer I haven't heard a word from you in such a long, long while. Our differences as always are impossible to reconcile. I tried to call you on the phone. I'd hoped to speak with you alone. I left a message once or twice for what that's worth. It seems you've fallen... Perhaps you've fallen... It's like you've fallen off the face of the earth. That time you left I thought we'd see each other now and then. I'd find you some familiar place and ask, "Do you remember when?" It hasn't worked out quite that way though I've been searching every day. There's been no trace of you at all for what it's worth. Perhaps you've fallen... It's like you've fallen... It seems you've fallen off the face of the earth. I've never wanted anchors or routines that tie me down. I want to pull up stakes each time somebody speaks my name in town. But I've run far as I can go. There's no one else I really know. You're all I've ever really loved for what that's worth. And now I'm fallin'... Each day I'm fallin'... I feel I'm fallin' off the face of the earth. I haven't heard a word from you in such a long, long while. I'll leave this one last message in the hope that it might make you smile. But since you won't return the call I'll take the phone down off the wall and let this number be released for what it's worth... and I'll have fallen... just like you've fallen... I will have fallen off the face of the earth.One of the twelve steps of Christmas. Light-hearted but still heart-felt.I am--happily and by choice--homeless this holiday season. It leads one to reflection. It also makes recording a bit challenging, so this comes a little later than I'd hoped. Intended in Gm but performed a capella so it may drift in spots. Warm wishes to all as the longest night passes! ---------- Solstice (cc) BY D A Ayer 2017-12-07 Look to the west: the oldest house lays down its head as night is done while in the east a bright new star shines above the rising sun. Two thousand years are all they reign in the temple of the sky: twelve signs and one less favored chase the dragon's tail, the phoenix' eye. A hundred generations pass for every month of that great year. Twelve times this sum will come and go before the first can reappear. Here in the dark we scribe a line to mark the dawn of each new age and hide the talisman away to pass along from sage to sage. While in the west the oldest house lays down its head: its night is come. And to the east a bright new star shines above the rising sun.A little resolution, this is the first composition I've done entirely on the road with no studio besides my recorder, DAW, and a pair of earbuds. Dedicated appreciatively to [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/mindmapthat]Kara[/url], [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/speck]Speck[/url], and the occasional [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/speck/45253]collusion of oil and water[/url]. ---------- The Other Side Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2017-12-22 Well I try to keep myself on the sunny side of the street. But sometimes my emotional state gets a hold of my feet and then I stumble [right] into the dark... and follow it to places where you don't want to park... where life and death choices are especially stark... where the wild wolves howl and the mad dogs bark. Life's not especially sweet on the other side of the street. Now I try to keep myself optimistic about mankind. But these days to do that I think I got to be out of my mind. I take a newspaper once or twice a week and by the time I reach the fold you know I'm ready to shriek. The business section scares me 'til I want to freak. The politics could make a stone statue weep. The news reporter's regular beat is on the ugly side of the street. If I'm going to be honest I think I'm just a little depressed. There are days I don't bother to get up, or even get dressed. And yet my life is pretty great for all that: I've got a warm coat and a practical hat. I sleep on a bed in a comfortable flat and from the front room window I can see where it’s at: the light's looking awfully sweet [over there] on the morning side of the street. So I hope you keep yourself off the cold, mean side of the street where the "Things That are Bad for You" menu is all-you-can-eat. Try to stick to the shade, not the dark... Drive past all the places where you don't want to park... where life and death choices are especially stark... where the wild wolves howl and the mad dogs bark. Like the man says: "Direct your feet to the sunny side of the street.” ... Just like the man says: “…direct your feet to the sunny side of the street.”Lyrics (cc)BY 2018 D A Ayer Hey, now...have you ever really stopped to hold your breath just to listen to the breeze as it tiptoes through the trees? Hey now, hey now... Hey, now...have you ever really stopped and shaken your head in wonder that the sky can hold the clouds all up so high? Hey now, hey now... Hey now, hey now... Hey, now...have you ever really stopped to think how many grains of sand were scattered as Atlantis fell and that yet no woman, child, or man escaped with any tale to tell? [and] have you ever felt the motion of the moon above the ocean? Hey now, hey now... Hey now, hey now... Hey, now...have you ever really stopped to contemplate that the songs of certain birds are composed of human words? Hey now, hey now... Hey, now...have you ever really stopped to figure out how to read between the lines to the meaning of the signs? Hey now, hey now... Hey now, hey now... Hey, now...have you ever really stopped just to think how long it's taken for some dust from the stars above to coalesce until they could awaken and gaze into your eyes with a look of love? [and] have you ever stopped to wonder at the rolling of the thunder? Hey now, hey now... Hey now, hey now... Hey, now...have you ever really stopped to hold your breath just to listen to the breeze as it tiptoes through the trees?Another meditation on how we got here. It's more somber than I'm feeling today, but then I've been working this one for a while. D minor with mechanical MIDI guitar accompaniment. The preview is a sketch supporting the a cappella. First zip STEMS are raw voice and trimmed, as is the a cappella preview. Second zip is time aligned with voice mics mixed and run through iZotope Nektar 2, plus the instrumental .mid file. ---------- Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2020-11-01 You might expect to get to choose the coin of your own realm... that is, unless you’ve studied just how the business goes: for though you man the ship of state and stand to boldly grasp her helm, the lines you cross and spheres you navigate are not what you suppose. Love, truth, and beauty are all there’s ever been to choose... Love, truth, and beauty underwrite all other currencies. Love, truth, and beauty: so hard to catch, much easier to lose. Love, truth, and beauty lie over heaven, earth, and seven seas. Now you can offer gold or silver just to get across the river though for the final trip two copper pence will do; and while a soldier you might barter faith for arrows in the quiver, once home you’ll know the price of life had naught to do with you. Love, truth, or beauty: that’s all there’s ever been to choose... Love, truth, and beauty underwrite all currencies. Love, truth, and beauty: so hard to catch, much easier to lose. Love, truth, and beauty lie over heaven, earth, and seven seas. Now Beauty spins your head around; she leads your craft and crew aground then disappears like morning dew or some imagined ghost, while Truth is made of solid stone that’s neither hope nor comfort known and will not stop to mourn the wrecks that dot her jagged coast. So one will fade, the other last, the latter slow, the former fast, but no such coin will keep you from the cold and if I had no fortune yet I’d stake my soul and place a bet on Love and seek enough to overfill my empty hold. Love, truth, or beauty: that’s all there’s ever been to choose... Love, truth, and beauty underwrite all human currencies. Love, truth, and beauty: so hard to catch, much easier to lose. Love, truth, and beauty lie over heaven, earth, and seven seas.I kept adding sources and then taking them away. In the end I kept it to three sources, minimally cropped, reordered, and speed shifted. Hope you both like it.There are some who look forward to a brave new world where human and machine intelligence (e)merge(s). The Singularity (Not) (cc)BY D A Ayer 2018-04-21 w/ apologies to [url=https://www.discogs.com/artist/16533-Gil-Scott-Heron]Gil Scott-Heron[/url] The Singularity will not be televised. The Singularity cannot be rasterized. The Singularity has not been verbalized. The Singularity is never recognized. The Singularity will not be civilized. The Singularity cannot be compromised. The Singularity has not been authorized. The Singularity is not legitimized. The Singularity will not be paralyzed. The Singularity cannot be vaporized. The Singularity has not been minimized. Once born the Singularity is never localized. The Singularity will not... The Singularity cannot... The Singularity has not... The Singularity is not... ...be put in a box and advertised. ...be comfortably ultra-Pasteurized. ...been up to its neck, so monetized. ...wearing a suit, and Martinized. The Singularity is never recognized. The Singularity has not been socialized. The Singularity cannot be humanized. The Singularity will not be televised.I adapted a current WIP for the Adaptation event. Oddly my scratch recordings were already hovering around 90bpm in Am when [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/tobias_weber/57533]Rooted In Soil[/url] was posted... Remixed April 25 with a hat-tip to [url=http://ccmixter.org/reviews/Mr_Yesterday/57551#241500]Mme Snowflake[/url] for the comments. Original mix survives as an alternate in case useful. Vocal stems and lyrics available as [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/57550][i]The Singularity[/i][/url].I found the text of [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/panumoon/57815]The New Americana[/url] brilliant. This is my show of support, quoted lyrics tweeted through the stack of Marshalls in my head.A further variation on [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/57550]The Singularity[/url] with some of the back story. Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2019-01-08 ---------- The fifties dream that shaped me has never really changed that much. Still... I never thought I'd live to see the end of paper books as such... or all my questions answered without stepping from the door; the bargain price we willing paid is living [i]Nineteen Eighty-Four[/i]. The singularity will not be televised. The singularity has not been authorized. The singularity is seldom recognized. The singularity cannot be supervised. The singularity will not... The singularity has not... The singularity is not... The singularity cannot... ...be put in a box and advertised. ...be fit with a yoke and monetized. ...be stuffed in a suit and Martinized. ...be comfortably ultra-Pasteurized. I made it through the cold war years yet never felt I'd found the truth. What hope I'd had to walk on distant worlds has faded with my youth. Held down to earth by point of fact I've given up on blasting out but take some consolation in believing "human" means "to doubt." The singularity will not be civilized. The singularity has not been socialized. The singularity is never compromised. Once born the singularity cannot be localized. The singularity will not... The singularity has not... The singularity is not... The singularity cannot be... The singularity cannot be supervised. The singularity is seldom recognized. The singularity has not been authorized. The singularity will not be televised.I thought I was done. Guess not. Whispered, spoken, and shouted versions of one text inspired by a few brief exchanges with [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/mindmapthat/58309]Kara[/url]. Raw, untrimmed samples are in the ZIP. Final product is [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/58354]over here[/url]. ---------- Flip the House (cc)BY D A Ayer 2018-09-17 Stand up, America! Move your feet... It's time to come out and hit the street. 'Cause we've got the numbers to make the big fix if we all come together on November sixth... Let's flip the House! Yeah... Flip the House! The Electoral College has had their fun: they put a bully in the china shop and gave him a gun and now he's makin' America great again by clubbing it back into 1910. And what does the illustrious Congress do? They're helpin' the monster to turn the screw, crushing life and liberty day by day. But come this November (we're) gonna have our say... Let's flip the House! Yeah... The Senate, too! It's no longer enough to just rock the boat. We've gotta grab this mutha legislature by the throat; Show it who's boss: flip it on its back; so the power of the People gonna rule this pack! So y'all stand up and move your feet... Crash like a wave out into the street to rock the vote, good women and men, and at the exit polls shout "Never Again!" Come on...flip the House! (Over...) Flip the Senate! (and...) in 2020... (out...) Flip the rest! (for good!)I was noodling around with some old lyrics when I stumbled on [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/58294]Dollar Zoom[/url] and just had to [b]resist[/b]. [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/NiGiD]Martijn[/url], thanks a bunch! [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/mindmapthat]Kara[/url], this one's for you. Lyrics and raw pells [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/58351]over there[/url].I took this as an opportunity to showcase the beauty of Kara's vocal performance. As often happens to me, it got pretty minimal. Zip file contains just raw and processed vocal accompaniment. The rest is all Kara, pitch and tempo adjusted and respliced.Exploring [url=http://ccmixter.org/people/reusenoise]reusenoise[/url]'s shuddering bass/percussion lines led me to memories of black ice. Those encounters each had a distinctive, inexorable structure: a gradually accelerating spin ending abruptly in a snow-filled ditch. The sax lines were voices I "heard" in intermediate mixes, then fleshed out in MIDI. As usual, all efforts were made to keep it (cc)BY.I'm finally finishing putting my studio back together and have a bit of a production backlog. This [i]a capella[/i] helped me troubleshoot and muffle the closet aka "mic booth." Straight-ahead gospel blues in D. Raw and processed stems at 96k are in the zip. Mrs_Yesterday's reaction on hearing it for the first time was, "I love you, too." So I guessed that was good enough. ---------- I Lost the Blues Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2018 Well, I sometimes sing the blues because I love the way they sound. Sad and lonely as I'm sure to feel the day they lay you in the ground. We've been poor, but seldom hungry, and won a few more times than lose. It's been such a long road that along the way I somehow lost the blues. Well, I used to sing the blues because I felt my life was tough. I worked and scrounged and hustled; still, I never got enough. Day by day my life grew better once I taught myself to choose yet of all the things I left behind I only miss the blues. Some day I'll sing the blues 'cause I'll be feelin' awful bad. They're the only thing I know of that can lift me when I'm sad. I'll reach right down inside me so's to sing them righteously for the Blues is music of the soul: when you need them, there they'll be. Well, sometimes I sing the blues because I love the way they sound: sad and mournful as an old dog's howl when his master can't be found. My way's been strange but life's been good and I've won more than I lose. Yet when I wander back along that road I always find the blues.October was a busy time and many things were started, not completed. This is one. The third whistling verse is part of the same vocal performance and is included in the voice stems. I deliberately recorded with no metronome/click so there is a fair degree of rubato. ---------- Adrift Lyrics © & (cc)BY D A Ayer 2018-10-26 Dm Sometimes I fear that we've wandered so far down this strange lonesome road we don't know who we are and when I look back all too often it seems the illusion of progress was all in my dreams. The hope that sustained us has grown brittle and thin. What wisdom we've gained has blown off on the wind. Love and virtue with knowledge slip away as we lie adrift in our selves looking up at the sky. Some days I feel we've gone blind to the light shining down on this world, seeing only the night that stretches ahead, full of sorrow and tears as we wrap ourselves tight in the cloaks of our fears. The joys of our childhood are covered in dust while the toys of our youth have all fallen to rust and our memory fades, as we conscious remain alone on our mountains staring out at the rain. Still there are nights when the wind whispers soft through the halls of my soul and then bears me aloft above these sad feelings of loss and regret where I dwell on the few things we dare not forget: that nothing of value is truly all mine; and kind words to a stranger will echo through time; that the ocean and desert share the stars far above; and the one thing worth finding and keeping is love.The minute I heard [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/JeffSpeed68/58999]Stefan's original[/url] I downloaded and started work. Stems followed but I wanted to post this before midnight New Year's Day (PST). The harp solo file is untrimmed so it aligns easily with the rhythm file. Sound starts at 01:16. Note: Replaced the preview with a new mix Jan 04. I'd rushed a bit and felt I'd overcompressed the whole mix and lost some of the vocal qualities I liked. So I tweaked compression (a lot), voice balance (a little), and left a bit of headroom this time. The original post remains as an alternate mix. Also wanted to add that this really perks along at 154 bpm, which is the actual tempo the original source.Raw and processed vocals to my lament for lost treasures everywhere. Is it significant that the bees--symbols of resurrection--and their hives above Notre-Dame de Paris survived the recent fire? It is, to me. Perhaps one definition of a miracle is a moment when the hand of chaos is temporarily stayed. There's some headphone bleed in the raw samples: worse on Mic01 than Mic02, easily gated out. Instrumental samples available [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/59645]here[/url]. Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2019-04-19 ---------- Ashes Over Paris The heat of ancient suns is now released, their untold years unraveled by the rising flame that fuels the forest's long withheld decease to fell its groaning timbers so they shake the earth again. The cooling stones stand vigil through the night, their empty bones half hidden by this writhing cloud that stings the eyes still weeping at the sight of ashes over Paris hanging like a winding shroud. Cathedrals burn down every day... None quite so proud but every one still precious in its way: the grande dame on the Île de la Cité; three tiny churches hidden in the southern USA... Cathedrals burn down every day... Blind faith in luck survives despite the odds, betraying our convictions as but little more than fear, while monuments we consecrate to God all crumble into dust like everything we hold most dear. And what the gods themselves made long before: bold pinnacles of mountains; stormy ocean depths sublime; the heavens' starry vault whose arches soar; will one day fall into the cold oblivion of time. Cathedrals burn down every day... like thunderclouds they vanish once the wind blows them away. A sun explodes and all around it dies; one hundred million years of ice melt right before our eyes... Cathedrals burn down every day... None quite so proud but every one still precious in its way: the grande dame on the Île de la Cité; three tiny churches hidden in the southern USA... Cathedrals burn down every day... Cathedrals burn down every day...Another one from the backlog. I started this about 10 months ago, but when I read Elon Musk is building rockets out of stainless steel I thought I better get a move on. This took a while, in part because the Theremin is harder than it at first appears, even if you want it to sound cheesy... ---------- Living in the Future Now Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2018-10-30 Efm I live in the future Now. My house makes my breakfast but I don't know how. I live in a future town but the same old local politics are getting me down. Everything's nice and clean and stainless. In school they teach the kids that adolescence is painless. There's a drug for every symptom -- two if you're nice -- And we're so diverse we're all alike as laboratory mice. I live in the future Now. The future Now... I married my future wife but I had to take a mortgage on the rest of my life. We live in a future whirl where sometimes I can't tell if she's a robot or a girl. Now everything we need is just a keypress away; we're shopping, shopping, shopping through the night and the day. Deliveries are endless to our snug little hive while our neighbors troll each other just to feel like they're alive. We live in the future Now. The future Now... The future's a lovely place as long you've got money and a nice pretty face. I work at a future biz though I'd rather be in Eden but I don't know where it is. I've got no time to worship in a typical way so I pray to mobile advertisers seven times a day. Every link that I follow is a miserable read and I hope someday redemption just shows up on my feed. 'cause I live in the future Now. The future Now... I live in the future Now. My house makes me breakfast but I don't know how. I live in a future town where the same old local politics are getting me down. Everything's nice and clean and stainless. In school they teach the kids that adolescence is painless. There's a drug for every symptom -- two if you're nice -- and we're so diverse we're all alike as laboratory mice We live in the future Now. The future Now... We live in the future Now!Sadness is a measure of humanity and withdrawal a form of protest in a culture that values most individuals only for their market potential. Seek peace. C#m at 54 bpm. The rough mix and MIDI file include very rudimentary piano chords in case helpful. ---------- Slow Fade Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2019-03-08 Standing on a rippling floe drifting on the summer sea my feet are cold even though my eyes are stung with sweat. Horizon's getting higher though it's farther off each day and pretty soon the sun won't even set. It's time...to do a slow fade... time to slip into the cool shade... to close my eyes and let forgotten dreams invade. It's time...to do a slow fade. Walking through an empty house once the dinner guests have gone my heart is warm but my ears still ringing from conversation as predictable as death. This hymn under my breath I can't stop singing: It's time...to do a slow fade... to sharpen up the garden spade... and find somebody new with memories to trade. [Perhaps] it's time to do a slow fade. Looking at an open sky while waiting for the storm; I know it's far away, but still it's coming and what it brings on darkened wings, though not for man to know, becomes a tune the whole world's humming. It's time...to do a slow fade... to turn the dial and give up on the hit parade... to see that all our friendly debts are fully paid. It's time...to do a slow fade.Another jazz/cosmology sample. Entropy is a universal phenomenon. Order is local and temporary. This is the most ambitious mix of my virtual band Sins of the Fathers that I've managed to complete. Multi-channel MIDI file is included for reuse. ZIP includes mono stems for each instrument. Lyrics and pells [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/59644]over there[/url].I thought both the text and performance of [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/softmartin/56028]Lagerklum[/url] were too fantastic to pass by. Then I found this cat hidden in [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/softmartin/56443]climate shift remix extra pell[/url] and the piece wrote itself around that. All samples are of Martin's & Manuel's original material, though since some were posted as remixes other tacit sources will appear in the remix tree.Well, here we are in 2019: both the fiftieth anniversary of [literally] the man on the moon and the centennial of Kurt Schwitter's [literary] publication of [i]An Anna Blume[/i]. It seemed fitting to remix an old friend. BY STEMs and lyrics [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/60013]over there[/url].Whatever Happened (to annabloom)? aka [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/60012]Alfred Jarry, Erik Satie, Georges Méliès, and C L Dodgson Walk Out of a Bar, Tripping Over a Young Hans Arp[/url] ---------- Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2019-07-04 Now whatever happened to dear annabloom Who sang dada da dada da dada da doom? Whose mechanical poetry charted the way from Arca Musarithmica to sheer an-ar-chay? Whose convolute titles would always delight? (They made NYT Sunday puzzles seem trite!) Who shredded each canvas while painting the smock with a wink and a nod each to Schwitters and Bach? Whose websites have crumbled, automata stopped, yet whose ouevre still looms like that vision, Loplop? Oh, whatever happened to dear annabloom Who sang dada da dada da dada da doom?Excuse Me, Miss (cc)BY D A Ayer 2019-08-22 Hello, pretty girl! I wonder what it is you see with those eyes so far away. They’ve looked right over and through me seven times or more today. But who’s counting? ... Well, hello, pretty girl! I wonder if you’re ever going to turn your head and notice that my glass is dry as I sit down here at the end of your bar with a patient look in my eye. I’m not looking for love but still hoping for kindness. Hello there, pretty girl! I wonder what you’ll be dreaming as you’re sleeping wherever you’re going tonight while I lie awake staring up at the ceiling and waiting for the morning light... another day ending soon beneath the sun and the moon. Hello, pretty girl! I wonder what it is you see with those eyes so far away. They’ve looked right over and through me fourteen times or more today. I don’t need to bend your ear but would you please refill my beer before you go?This was meant to be the debut of my virtual session band back in November 2018. My political conscience was so thoroughly aggrieved by the Kavanaugh confirmation that it took me a while to get back and finish this. I had planned to post the pell separately with the lyrics as (I thought?) was customary, but got busted by an "exceeded quota" message from the host. No patience with that, I added the zipped voice stems here. LMK if you need lyrics in text.From some early performances ca. 2011, after ongoing rework. ---------- Where is My Future (II) © & (cc)BY-NC D A Ayer 2014, 2018 Where is my future? ...the one with a rocket ship in every garage? ...Zeppelins the size of football stadiums, engines droning, majestically aloft? ...equipped with hookah lounges, tennis courts, swimming pools? ...apartments strung across suspension bridges, as if by easy levitation? ...electric cars speeding silently through endless, gleaming Sunday afternoons? Where is my future? ...the one without war, tyranny, oppression, [and] man's inhumanity to man? ...without disease, schizophrenia, cancer, deformity, or AIDS? ...lacking ignorance, greed, the lust for power, and petty despots? ...the morning after the sleep of Reason and the midnight of the hydrogen bomb? ...boon of the workers' Revolution, the four-day work-week and the four-hour work-day? Where is my future? ...those future scientists, connecting all the dots? ...impassioned neighbors looking far across the universe and deep into the atom? ...tracing the lives of subatomic particles through a multitude of bubble chambers? ...perched on the business ends of electron microscopes the size of cities? ...unraveling the secrets of every helix, and all in our spare time? Where is my future? ...the one in polished chrome, heated with microwaves, cooled with liquid nitrogen? ...fueled by the promise of that hockey-stick trajectory we bought with World War II? ...accelerating through the fifties on a binge of jet fuel shaken, not stirred? ...my nirvana of consumer culture, accompanied by rock-n-roll? ...its late night broadcasts filled with jazz played live from every city? Where is my future? ...the will to cross any unknown ocean just to see its distant shore? ...the faith that one day we, not robot drones, would stand on other worlds? ...our fixed base on the Moon, the stepping stone to Mars? ...the great ships fueled by smaller stars, the fusion-powered biospheres? ...the would-be colonists, our voluntary aliens, fruitful and multiplied? Is this it, then? ...data networks, smart phones, music downloads, cable shows? ...treadmills, fitness trackers, e-books, talking cars? ...the avarice of industry, the need to sell the news? ...advertisements for diet pills, safe thrills, cheap shoes? ...must we have so much, yet be in want?A fine bit of irony, this was intended as a one-week project about a month ago. It could be recycled for lo-fi use, I suppose, but that wasn't the original vision. Lyrics below. The usual raw vocals and MIDI files are in the zips. ---------- Precious Time © & (cc)BY D A Ayer 2021-08-16 You're waiting for the train--it seems the clocks are standing still-- but, once back on your way again, the seconds start to spill from out that little hole you poked the day you first arrived in precious time… precious time, mm hmm: all precious time. Tonight, I wait for you alone but don’t know where you are: you could be flying overhead or 'round some distant star as fate alone determines if our paths should chance to meet in precious time… Try as you might to toe the line you're always running late yet when life comes down to the wire you won't escape your fate as one by one the moments drop into the ebbing tide of precious time… This world was made without a key to open Kronos' lock; the powerful and wealthy try, but can't reverse the clock; Time may be money, as they say, yet money can’t buy back our precious time… So, fare thee well, my lover, though I can't prove you exist like wind and rain from yesterdays long vanished in the mist. Don't live your life in haste yet do be careful not to waste your precious time… precious time, mm hmm: all precious time.Common Cause (cc)BY D A Ayer 2019-11-13 I once believed in common cause for all mankind: we’d overturn the horsemen three and only Death would ride to find us in our time. Yet when I spoke as friend the valiant marked me foe: I was naive, unrealistic, and my roots so status quo. This ain’t your cross to bear. It’s not your flag to fly. These aren’t your songs to sing. Ours aren’t your tears to cry. The ones who hold us down shall fall as prophesied and when we march to victory you’ll be there, but on the other side. And so I came to keep my counsel to myself. I’d never seek to cheat another...or to lay the blame for my mistakes on someone else. And I declared my sole allegiance to that goal. I walked alone along that path with only hope to keep me whole. I need no cross to bear. I keep no flag to fly. My own, the songs I sing. My eyes are clear and dry. No one can hold me down or misdirect my pride. When heroes cross the river I’ll be here, still on the other side.This emerged throughout December but took a bit too long to post before the new year. So I suppose it's my New Year's song...more or less in E. There are (entirely mechanical) rhythm guitar and piano backing tracks in the second zip file in case they're helpful. They were my click track for practice and performing, but yearn to be replaced with real music. Best wishes for 2020! Lyrics ---------- Don’t Look Down © & (cc)BY D A Ayer 2019-12-18 Look how far we’ve come, and yet so far to go: [we’re] balanced on the wire between our dreams and status quo. Tomorrow’s certain fact is not a sight for human eyes; we have to trust that fortune just around the corner lies so staring straight ahead I greet the dawn of each new day as night escapes behind and steals the brilliant stars away while all around I hear the sound of friends who’ve come this far; we’re looking up and chanting with one voice: Don’t look down! Don’t look down! Don’t look down! Don’t look down! Look at all we’ve done, and all that’s left to do: [you] plow the field and sow the crop, but still the weeds poke through. All good intention leads to virtue, so we once were told, and scoured away the errant marks that scarred the perfect mold ‘til the products of our hand became the yearnings of our heart, all unintended features smoothed away by righteous art; and so we built a city only icons could afford still looking up and chanting with one voice: Don’t look down! Don’t look down! Don’t look down! Don’t look down! Look how high we’ve climbed to almost reach the sky! We’ve mastered where and when and how, but still can’t answer “Why?” Our patient toil and sacrifice have led us to the top and now there’s nowhere left to go we don’t know how to stop. Each generation stands a little closer to the edge and reaches in to push its children higher up the ledge while clutching dreams their elders can’t begin to comprehend, they’re standing tall and chanting with one voice: Don’t look down! Don’t look down! Learn to fly! But don’t look down! Don’t look down! Don’t look down! Don’t look down! Don’t look down!Woke up feeling upbeat this morning. Why fight it? Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2020-01-14 ---------- Debate This!* I want to go where the moon shines bright. I want to dance under the stars tonight. I want to love to my heart’s delight and I want to sing until the dawn’s first light. I want to breathe where the air smells sweet. I want to walk with no shoes upon my feet. I want to pass doors open all up and down the street. I want to hear three hundred million hearts beating with one beat. I want to go where the moon shines bright. I want to dance under the stars tonight. I want to love to my heart’s delight. I want to sing until the dawn’s early light.I had a [url=http://ccmixter.org/reviews/speck/60920#254570]brief exchange with Speck[/url] the other day, and then Stefan posted this delectable piano sample. The result is a bit...conventional, given the topic. Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2020 ---------- Not bound by knowledge nor ruled by fate you wander 'most anywhere happily until it gets late 'cause nobody's waiting up worrying 'bout where you've been and tomorrow you'll get up and do it all over again. Ignoring convention and heedless of rules you’ve stolen the keys to the genius of fools and used them to open impossible doors between front stairs and back, between ceilings and floors. Should anyone ask you what you're going to do next I suppose “that depends” is the literal text. If it feels good, it will be, I guess you might say, 'cause the verb in the phrase "playing music" is "play". Not bound by knowledge nor ruled by fate you live in the now where the word "hesitate" is like Greek to an oyster or soup to a pen and tomorrow you'll get up and do it all over again.It's difficult to improve on anything Emily does. But one can interpret. Once I searched the archives it was clear we've done this before: events dedicated to fire and recovery. History we are doomed to repeat? So, a phoenix, then. I found no local samples of fire itself, which I wanted for this. Accordingly, credit to the recordists of [url=https://freesound.org/search/?q=fire]freesound[/url]--where 3,843 sounds are tagged with "fire" as of 2020-02-24!--as follows: "Fire Crackle and Flames 002" cc0 by FractalStudios @ [url=https://freesound.org/s/363092/]https://freesound.org/s/363092/[/url] "fire2.wav" cc0 by tc630 @ [url=https://freesound.org/s/47835/]https://freesound.org/s/47835/[/url] "Bonfire Being Lit" cc0 by samararaine [url=https://freesound.org/s/186374/]https://freesound.org/s/186374/[/url] "Another Fire" cc0 by AngriestBrad @ [url=https://freesound.org/s/495894/]https://freesound.org/s/495894/[/url] "Fire.wav" cc0 by ken778 @ [url=https://freesound.org/s/386751/]https://freesound.org/s/386751/[/url] "FIREPLACE" ccBY by leosalom @ [url=https://freesound.org/s/234288/]https://freesound.org/s/234288/[/url] Many are cc0, but why not give credit? And one is actually a "fire loop made by crumpling wax paper", and how great is that?Lyrics inspired by and sung to Javolenus' [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Javolenus/61184]Jangroove[/url]: Just trying to be you. That's all you've ever wanted. At least that's what you say. To be accepted while standing up for yourself. Ain't that always the way? Well, which is it...when you can't have 'em both? Don't you see you've just been gamed? But not to worry. It's taken for granted. Nobody cares anyway. Just go on living, and it'll be all right-- maybe not great, but still OK. You're alive but you've just been gamed. So let go the anger. Forget all about it. Sold down the river... Livin' fast but going nowhere. Taken for a sucker... You've been gamed. Life itself's a miracle: a convoluted instant far too vast to comprehend. Each day you try to climb tomorrow's mountain you just get closer to the end. But if you manage to love along the way... ...at least you played the game. So just try to be you. It's what you've always wanted-- doesn't matter what you say-- to be accepted while standing up for yourself: Is there any other way? Lovin' fast...that's just how we gotta do it. Being ourselves, that's all there is to it-- everyone the same: by any other name we've all been gamed. And there's nothing but the game.This is a good time to remember the urgency of saying things unsaid while you can. Or, to think of Willy Nelson's [i]Sad Songs and Waltzes[/i]... ---------- Dropped Goodbye (CC BY 3.0) D A Ayer 2020-03-18 [I] don't really see you much any more. Guess I haven't been hanging around... just finding way too much to do all by myself on the other end of town. Heard about your party, had to work, and didn't want to RSVP "No". Still I thought today I ought to drop in to say goodbye before you go. I suppose I imagined you'd always be here, though you didn't have a reason to stay. Some people create the places they're in and I'd come to think of you that way. So when I heard that you were leaving for good I wondered what you'd leave behind besides some dust on the floor near your old front door where you kissed me one last time. We had what we had, for a while it was good, and that's how I remember us now, but the world kept on turning in its own slow way and our paths drew apart somehow. That your road leads farther than mine ever did is, I must admit, quite surprise but it's plain now to me that I'm not going to see you or that bright, fresh look in your eyes. [I] didn't manage to catch you after all. Guess I won't be hanging around. Without you this house is just a tired old place in a quiet, unremarkable town. I brought you a rose as a parting gift, just one lonely stem and a tear. Whoever comes along might be singing this song, so I think I'll just leave them here.I find field recordings fascinating. Ones involving urban exploration add a narrative thrill. The hunt for a train to jump (something I also did with an old school pal decades ago) was just too good to pass up.Jazz automata at 141 BPM. Please forgive the length. This goes on a while, but some variety comes from the development. Most of the patches are "pure" except the synth piano which picked up a lot of drums.Dedicated to Caitlin Ayer, who's been marching in NYC... Notes on 6-23: -- Replaced FX files to reduce some HF noise -- B-flat minor, in case it seems hard to use ---------- We are Them (cc)BY D A Ayer 2020-06-21 When my daughter went out marching, I went and wrote this song while my neighbor went and bought himself a gun and while I’m hoping that the future he imagines won’t come true I think I’d rather work to make another one. Don’t think of us...opposed to them. Don’t value friendship less than everything you own. Don’t think that somehow you’ll get back on top again. The world is moving on, you’ll find yourself alone. Now folks are rising up today to make this world a better place against the forces that oppose them as before and while the scars of history testify to (the) pain of past mistakes it seems we’ll have to just endure a little more. Don’t make the past...more than it was. Don’t trade tomorrow for some bygone yesterday. Don’t think your sword won’t turn to rust. The sun is coming up, you’ll wish yourself away. Now there’s a peace that comes with silence—how I long to hear that sound— but at this moment silence spells complicity along with fear and subjugation and the quiet of the grave... Raise up your voice aloud and make reality! Don’t try to wish...this fight away. Don’t think that violence ever makes a coward brave. Don’t turn your back on love today ‘cause in the end yours just might be the soul you save. Don’t think of us opposed to them. (That’s not the way to make things right!) Don’t value friendship less than everything you own. Don’t think that somehow you’ll get back on top again. (That’s not the fight!) The world is moving on, you’ll find yourself alone. Don’t make the past more than it was. (Those crimes can never be excused!) Don’t trade tomorrow for some bygone yesterday. Don’t think your sword won’t turn to rust. (It has no virtue once it’s used!) The sun is coming up, you’ll wish yourself away. Don’t try to wish this fight away. (It will rise stronger than before!) Don’t think that violence ever makes a coward brave. Don’t turn your back on love today (Hate can’t protect you any more!) ‘cause in the end yours just might be the soul you save.I harvested a whole lot of material intending something quite different, but [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/mindmapthat/61233][i]Numbers[/i][/url] have a way of taking over. All MIDI instruments were derived from Kara's original bass .mid file, with mild extensions. BPM starts at 96.5; break, accelerando from 112 to about 118; back to 96.5 for the reprise. Thanks, Kara, for including the MIDI, all the dry vox takes, generous licensing. A lot of fun to work with!Improv voice dashed off on my third listen in one take and uploaded. We could quibble over glaciers calving to form icebergs, but this is what came, so here it is.Thanks, Stefan, for providing your tune as the vehicle for me to dash this off. Strange day yesterday here in the States, one for the history books, and I needed to get this set to music. Just right (well, I sped it up just a bit)! Mix is (cc)BY-NC and fully attributed in file metadata comments, but I haven't checked to see how universally readable those tags are. Lyrics alone (cc)BY 2021 D A Ayer ---------- It’s been a miserable day, although shorter than the long and lonely night at this darkest end of four long, dark years of sickness, lies, and blight. Tomorrow I’ll look out my window, check the weather, then the street, and choose which boots to wear on these, my tired and aching feet. Morning’s not for celebration when the planting’s just begun; or the starting shot has just been fired in a race that’s not yet run; and the signs ahead suggest there’ll be some hazards on the way. We’ll have to relearn how to trust to make it through this day. ‘Cause it’s a long, long road we’re walkin’ but we’ve started down the track to get to solid ground again and take this country back. There’s no guarantee we’ll do it to be frankly realistic, but if you ask me how I feel tonight I’m cautiously optimistic. This America’s been a nightmare; Truth has hung her head to cry; yet I hope to say I’m a proud again just once before I die. ‘Cause it’s a long, long road we’re walkin’ and it starts right here....is this thing on? OK, guessing there's a need for a back story: my magic hour is way after bedtime. Could be any time, really, but late is when I stop paying any heed to my good and trusted rules, like: -- Don't have that last [whatever I'm having]... -- Wait 15 years before reviving a classic. -- Steer clear of pop soul 'cause you ain't. -- Never, ever, remix "Wired But Disconnected". Still, it can be a lot of fun before I fall down. Apologies to Duckett, who's heard so many of these now it must be getting old; but there's a reason! Also, the attribution search box wouldn't turn up some older Duckett sources I used: -- [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/duckett/12694]Wormhole[/url] -- [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/duckett/15339]TriggerDuck Beat[/url] ps -- 54bpm except for the brief bari sax solo at 56bpm. pps -- 07/18/21 levels reoptimizedLyrics © & (cc)BY D A Ayer 2021-12-06 ---------- How are you lonely? Does it change from day to day? How are you lonely? …or does it always come on the very same way? Do you yearn for someone else? Does it make you cry out loud? Do you feel all by yourself in the press of the crowd? [chorus:] How are you la-da da-dah da-da-dah la-da-da-da da-dah How are you lonely? How are you lonely? Do you lie awake at night? Do you imagine you said something wrong and nothing you do can make it alright? Do you worry…it’s too late to make amends? What’s your hurry to call just to ask whether you can [still] be friends? [chorus] How are you lonely? Does the day fly far too fast? Or do the seconds tick by one at a time as you watch your life fade into the past? Does the band sound tired and seasick as the ice melts in your gin? Do you plan to stay out all night long? Are you wishing you’d just stayed in? [chorus] How are you lonely? Does it change from day to day? How are you lonely? …or does it always come on the very same way? Do you yearn for someone else? Does it make you cry out loud? Do you feel all by yourself in the press of the crowd? [chorus]Never could resist a solstice observation. In Em, so should be relatively easy to reuse. Lyrics (cc)BY D A Ayer 2022-12-01 Summer’s gone, and yet my mind’s still wandering free. Leaves are falling--autumn’s colors start to flee-- and I wonder as I think of you if that’s why I’ve been feeling blue or if there’s something else I’ve failed to see. Summer’s gone, and yet my mind’s still wandering free… Winter’s here, bringing holidays and cold. We’ve swung once more ‘round the sun--or so I’m told-- yet I feel I haven’t moved at all, just standing still, not walking tall, although there’s somewhere else I’d rather be. Winter’s here and all my dreams lie far from me… Midnight’s come, with its promise of the dawn and the days will each get longer from now on, so it’s time to ponder, once again, what aims are worthy of my pen and which to keep my own, no one to see. Midnight’s come, but now my heart feels strangely free…Companion instrumental stems for [url=http://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/65774]Midnight's Come[/url], the backing track I had only in my head at the time I recorded the voice track...which also explains (somewhat) the differences in tempo. I meant to get this up here before the 14th, but winter travel and the first bout of flu in over three years slowed me down getting it posted. I've added my rough mix with the vocal as well. Still in Em, but accelerated to 120BPM.This one ran over time. I'd hoped to post it in early January but chords needed work, vocals needed work, everything took longer than expected. And I didn't think it quite fit the Solstice quintessentially, so here it is on its own. It's in time for the Oscar season, I guess. I don't watch anything associated with competition or awards, especially arts-related. Intro (FM) is 5 bars @ 94 bpm, then 16 @ 112, followed by five verses (Dm) at 134. Maudlin MIDI piano chords and the MIDI file in the stems in case it helps with tempo and key. Like Moths to Flame* Lyrics (c) & (cc)BY D A Ayer 2023-01-31 Intro (FM) Well, my throat’s on fire from Auld Lang Syne--or perhaps too much cheap rum-- while my eyes still burn from those prayers we smoked in hopes of days to come. A new dawn rises groaning from the couch of last night’s host. Yes, it’s 2023 my friend, so let’s drink a parting toast: Verse 01 (Dm) Here’s to the young ones who dared believe despite the odds that wanting something bad enough could earn the favor of the gods, who saw dirt tracks as shining roads to fortune, wealth, and fame drawn to the city lights like moths to flame. Here’s to the ingenues lined up out in the hall reading for a role already taken in a backroom deal last fall, vestal virgins sacrificed to the immortal marquee names, drawn to the city lights like moths to flame. Here’s to the b-ball boys, the fastest on their feet, caught up in the crossfire of drive-bys on the street, who never gave a signature but practiced just the same, drawn to the city lights like moths to flame. Here’s to waves of pilgrims out of Hometown, USA surfing Greyhound buses headed vaguely toward LA, who washed up in the strip malls as the tide ran out again, drawn to the city lights like moths to flame. Here’s to would-be heroes of ten thousand silver screens: the ones who didn’t make it, their faces never seen… Here’s to all the dreamers whose fifteen minutes never came… drawn to the city lights like moths to flame.The House D A Ayer 2023-05-07 There is a house in my dream. You’ll note my use of the singular. Twice. I’m trying to be precise here, but dreams elude precision, just as often happens when I try to write clearly, yet my words drift out of focus: standing a ways off by themselves once I have penned them down, lying in wait for whom- and whatever comes along. If read, perhaps communicating…something. Who knows what? But I digress… There is a house in my dream. And my dream is of the house. That is to say, if the house is in my dream, I am in the dream of the house. Like you, I suppose, I have dreamt of many houses in many other dreams: incidental houses, lived in or passed by, shifting like dream sand, different every night (or even several times in a single night!). But those are stage-set houses, purpose-built for stage-play dreams. They have no substance of their own. Those are not this house. Those dreams are not this dream. As I said, I’m trying to be precise. In the dream, the house is almost always very different than before, yet it is always the same house. Sometimes the house stands off by itself, attended by outbuildings…or none. Just as often, the house is a single floor of a walk-up apartment building, though clearly an entire floor. It varies. Still, I always know the house, and so I always know the dream. In the dream, the house is also in a different place than last time. It may be a rental flat in a town I once went to college in, though never a flat I actually rented, or even a building I was ever in, myself. While absolutely familiar, this is not just some memory of a rented flat. Of course, I have had those dreams, too, about memories: those were not this dream, and not this house. The apartment house has dusty, afternoon light or else is softly lit at night. The flat is always on an upper floor: I sense it is the third, a level I have seldom lived on, and only briefly. Yet I recognize the house. Just as often, the house lies out of town, in the rural hills of some US heartland state I may have driven through, but where I have surely never lived: Virginia, or Tennessee, perhaps. Missouri. In this heartland, it is almost always overcast and wet, and there may be a stream or even a small river. It’s often raining, or the rain has just stopped, and I sense it has been raining for many days. It’s the sort of rain that passes for spring in some places, where first it was winter and then there was rain and rain and rain but before you know it BANG the sun comes out, baking hot mist from the land and you can smell road tar and it’s summer already. That’s how seasons changed in the places I grew up. But this is none of those places. The house always needs something done. There is an element of disrepair, neglect: a hallway blocked by an accumulation of old pipes and wallboard, or maybe fallen bricks; a basement passage flooded with mud, inaccessible behind a door whose frame has fallen in and needs rebuilding; one room with only a single light overhead no longer responsive to its switch and, of course, no windows. A traverse of the house to gather proper tools—to a lived-in area and back, perhaps—is the journey of the dream. I travel from darkness, alone, to light—where there are others gathered, often—then back to darkness, alone again, to this task which, like the house itself, is always different, yet the same. And in the dream, the house reveals to me beyond this task a secret, a vast potential: a whole, unseen apartment, rooms upon rooms, within itself, somehow never noticed. These are nearly always unused and yet intact, there to be inhabited, filled up, enjoyed. A little dusty. Empty, or even partly filled with outdated furniture covered in sheets. And although the rooms were hidden, there are windows, views of trees and sunlight. How could we not have seen them? Yet, when others join me in the dream, I alone am excited by these discoveries. Once, the house stood near the ocean, and I could see the waves far off, past trees and neighbors’ houses. But the rear yard was being remade. I’d studded it with steel beams set in concrete, clearly an early stage of a barrier wall of some kind. Beyond this and down a sizeable seaward slope lay a completed and very sturdy fence, built from similar beams spanned by stacks of lumber. This work was still in progress, clearly my task to complete. I woke having watched the backyard fill with seawater as the tide rushed in, listening to the roar of surf as its spray gushed above my ramparts-in-progress while dusk gathered gently about the house. Yet I do not recall ever waking from the dream uneasy. I imagine you sometimes have bad dreams, as of course do I. But this dream, this house, this task: these are not those. I did not grow up in the house. I moved away from home long before I came to know it in my sleep. But in the dream I know the house, and where it stands, and what to do next. Awake, I no longer know this.Sorry to be late to the party; I had a little studio breakdown that required an obsolete part. The preview here has my usual dirt-simple chord approach to staying on key, also included as a .mid file if you want to embellish it. 70 BPM except for measures 38-44 which speed up to 75. Lyrics below: Walk With Me D A Ayer 2023-10-05 Walk with me a little while along your way… Walk with me until tomorrow, or only today. I’m not looking for a lover, though I sure could use a friend just to share some conversation ‘til our time comes to an end. Walk with me. We can talk about whatever: tell me all your sorrows; just complain about the weather. It’ll help to pass the time and maybe lighten up the load while our paths lie down together on this quiet stretch of road. Walk with me… (x4) You’re going east; I’m headed west; and though they must divide ‘til the road forks up ahead our oppositions coincide. We’re entangled at this moment in the congress of our Now. Was it Providence or chance to blame? It doesn’t matter how. Walk with me… (x4) Needed to put up a remix for bug testing and, well, didn't have one that met all requirements. So, just for grins... This is a test of the Emergency Remix System. This is only a test. Had this been an actual emergency, instructions to upload high-quality source files with Appropriate Artistic Attribution would follow. This is only a test. This concludes this test of the Emergency Remix System. Thanks to raja_ffm for providing the source guinea pig... While reviewing holiday material over on ccMixter I was inspired to write something new after listening to essesq's "My Prayer for You" (https://ccmixter.org/files/essesq/34946). None of that material was used as a source, it was just a jumping-off point. This is also partly inspired by "The Parting Glass", had it been written for a jazz/honky tonk piano accompaniment (one can sing the first four lines of each verse to that tune, actually). The MIDI piano track I used to perform with is included here as a stem, along with the resulting mix preview. Bluesy Em at 80bpm. Lyrics D A Ayer 2023-11-27 Another turn around the sun leaves four more seasons wrapped and done as newborn faces find the sky that some old friends have left behind… I wish you well as we each pass into the next. I wish you well in your encounter with the Sphinx. Someday perhaps we’ll meet again and trade some stories from our quests but just in case I’ll bless your wanderings, discoveries, and jests and wish you well. I wish you well. Do you believe in heaven’s grace and life transcending time and space or do you venture all alone into a universe unknown? I wish you well as we leap forward toward the light. I wish you well as you confront the inky void. Perhaps in time we’ll find our faiths entwined in revelations new but for tonight I’ll raise a glass and drink to both our points of view and wish us well. I wish you well. Another turn around the sun and four more seasons yet to come will find me standing here again if I’m as lucky as I’ve been… I wish you well throughout the days that lie ahead. I wish you well in all your ventures great and small. Perhaps next year we’ll meet again to trade our stories and some cheer but here’s another toast perchance one or the other can’t be here to wish us well. I wish you well.This one just showed up, unbidden, so I had to get it out of my system. Cliché? Derivative? Likely so... Lyrics 2023-12-01 D A Ayer There’s no need worry when you come in late tonight. I don’t wait up for you any more. You won’t need to tiptoe or dim the kitchen light. I’m not there to hear you latch the door. We once had something pure and I treasure that for sure but those feelings faded long ago, my dear. And those aren’t my tears you’re watching gather slowly 'round your feet. You know I hear sometimes it rains this time of year. xI've been working on a series of automated "drawings" that react to local viewer movements by tapping on the glass used to frame them. The apparatus for this one looks a bit jury-rigged at the moment, but it's coming along. Now and then the prototypes give up something interesting, as this did when I decided to drive a wire armature at slightly four times its resonant frequency and used a jar lid in place of the glass. Might be useful. The stereo flac file has the lid pattern on the left channel with the driver (electromagnet) pulse on the right. The driver beat varies +/-10ms or so thanks to the method used to adjust the frequency, but averages to 153.85 bpm over the 3'40" length of the sample.Very straightforward Cm @ 110bpm until the last four bars. Lyrics © & (cc)BY D A Ayer 2024-01-27 Listen to the rain falling softly down. Listen to the rain falling when there’s no one else around. Listen as it gently swells the dry and thirsty ground. If you’re wondering about the trees that might be falling in the forest do you really think the rain will ever stop making this sound? Listen to your heart beating next to mine. Listen to your heart beating while the stars in the heavens shine. Listen as it marks the seconds of your life in irregular time. If you’re dreaming of tomorrow or just yesterday’s remainders do you ever wake up sure your heart has crossed some imaginary line? Listen to the wind whisper as it steals your dreams away. Listen to the wind whisper as it rolls out a bright new day. Listen as it tatters all the clouds and scatters blue amongst the rain’s dull gray. If you’re certain of your future maybe better think again or ask the wind to tell you why it cared to start blowing this way. Listen to the wind whisper… Listen to your heart beating… Listen to the rain falling... Listen to the rain… "The average cremation weight across all adults is 5.9 pounds ... according to a review of four studies published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences in 2011." -- https://occasionalsage.com/cremation/ashes-weight-calculator/ In addition to sources available on ccMixter, the following two files were used: bongo dry.wav CC-BY 4.0 2008 Satoration https://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=57297 Trackback on ccM @ https://ccmixter.org/pools/item/35419 Indoor Footsteps.wav CC-Zero (Public Domain) 2016 by dkiller2204 https://freesound.org/people/dkiller2204/sounds/366111/This is a remix of Admiral Bob's "Monuments" using my re-spliced vocal track: the way I imagine I might have sung it, had we been performing together. For the mix, I had to add four repeated bars to Admiral Bob's fantastic instrumentals so the final guitar close came after the vocals faded, as in his 2019 opus. I'm reposting it as a new remix entry, just so attribution works correctly. I had forgotten that just identifying another mixter in the A Capella upload form does not bump their stats. This should fix that. The previously uploaded pell is still available for remix over at [url=https://ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/67849]Monumental Respect (pell)[/url]. Thanks again, Admiral!This is a little sketch I jotted down nine years ago and never developed. I started editing it into lines, phrases, stanzas before posting it here...and then reconsidered and thought that should be up to you. This is pretty much how I wrote it down the first time. I can imagine this as an urgent whisper/incantation or bundled into a sharp staccato rap delivery. I always read it like I'm performing in a poetry jam, which I've never actually done; that may explain why I've not used or published this before. Anyway, use it however you like. Chop it up, repeat, overlay with something else. Whatever. ----- I am Your icon An image A vision Perfection You see in me A reflection Of dreams Drifting under the surface Settling lower Proud Belly Up I am Eternal Essential Undying Potential Will always be Evidential These wounds Being mortal are only Intended for you Others Not Me Fortunate to have drawn martinsea again for this event, I let this piece mix itself around his performances, adding only the sound effects of writing and paper.