I've got a new Christmas EP coming out in a week. It's called Ring the Fuller Minstrel In. Here's a lyric video of the first track, my take on the Tennyson poem "Ring Out, Wild Bells":
I also did a couple of covers for the bonus round of SpinTunes 18 and submitted a hastily-recorded song to the "It Wasn't My Good Fortune" Song Fight.
I was eliminated after round two, but I submitted a shadow entry for round three of SpinTunes. The round three challange was: "Tell Me What You Want: Write the "I want" song for a musical that otherwise doesn’t exist. Your imagined musical may be based on a true story or an existing non-musical work (novel, film, etc), or it may be wholly original. A musical's "I want" song is the number early in the show in which the main character lays out their basic desire and motivation - to find themselves, to prove themselves, to fit in, to get out, etc."
My imagined musical is an adaptation of the 1964 Doctor Who serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth, but focused on the character of the Doctor's granddaughter Susan. I'm thinking it would be structured a bit like Into the Woods, with the first act basically following the story that was on television but the second act carrying on with Susan after The Doctor, Barbara, and Ian depart in the TARDIS.
In round one of SpinTunes 16, I did a song based around a scene in a movie rather than from a book and I remember feeling as if there was some disappointment that more of us did movies than books from some of the judges. So, a bit later, for the Song Fight prompt "Mythical Creature," I did a song from a book (Edith Nesbit's Book of Dragons). After doing that song, the thought crossed my mind that I might do a song for each of the stories in the book. Casting around for a topic for this challenge, I revisited that thought.
This song started out being based on the story "The Deliverers of their Country," but it turned into its own thing pretty quickly. In the story, a tiny dragon flies into a young girl's eye. But the dragon is safely removed and is merely a harbinger of larger dragons on the horizon. There is no gestalt flying eyeball entity in the book. That just showed up out of nowhere and took over (just like in the song).
The SpinTunes 18 round two challange was: "Escape the Grid: Write a song that makes creative use of one or more tempo changes."
I'm having a second go at the SpinTunes contest. The round one songs have just been posted to Bandcamp. The round one prompt was "Color Me Impressed: Write a song about, or prominently mentioning, a specific color."
A lovely little waltz about being murdered and buried in the garden. Written for the "I'm Covered in It Now" Song Fight.
I covered Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More" for Micah Sommersmith in the most recent round of Gift of Music. My mom, JoAnne Hinkle, is on violin.
I'd have to look up how many times (if ever) Sherlock actually told John Watson that "the game was afoot" at an adventure's commencement. Watson may have occasionally said something like "Another Mystery Solved," at one's conclusion. Or perhaps not.
I definitely got a song written and recorded in the current Song Fight, though. It's a bit Christmassy and a bit weird. It's a cheating song and a waltz. It's got Mellotron and sleigh bells going on.
[A slightly reworked version of this track will appear on my forthcoming Christmas EP. As such, the Song Fight version has been removed from SoundCloud. Perhaps I'll remember to re-embed this song in December?]
It's another Song Fight! song! Hooray! Not quite the same as the version I sent in though: I re-recorded a few seconds of guitar and probably tweaked the mix slightly. So this version is loads better, but you may or may not notice.
Well, I'm sitting in a boat. I sure hope that it can float. Trying to make up a song, one that won't go on too long, I'm sitting in a boat.
I had written a song for the next fight, "Better Luck Next Year," before I had this quite finished. I like that song quite a bit more than this one, but this one is probably still fine? People on the Song Fight message boards seem to be responding favorably to it.
My song for the "I Am Very Busy" Song Fight. The maraca on "Mythical Creature" was well received, so I wanted to do something else with it. I've kept this very simple, just guitar, kalimba, maraca, hand claps, and vocals.
I am very busy
I can’t join in your soiree
I have counted all the raindrops
now must put them all away
seemed like the sky was crying
over things it saw today
so I counted all the raindrops
and must put them all away
sunshine, it was promised,
would make all our troubles melt
but the fists of the infection
still upon the grieving pelt
despite daylight disinfectant
dribbling down the damage dealt
the fists of the infection
still upon the grieving pelt
hidden among rain clouds
grateful when the storm arrives
much simpler to count raindrops
than tears spilt for stolen lives
I am very busy
I can’t sing your songs today
I have counted all the raindrops
now must put them all away
when faced with persecution
I can’t think of what to say
so I’ve soaked up all the raindrops
and am hiding them away
I've soaked up all the raindrops and am hiding
My song for the Song Fight title "Mythical Creature" was inspired by the Edith Nesbit story "The Book of Beasts."
Another song written for Song Fight, but I originally sat down with my guitar to write a song for SpinTunes 16 Round 3. I didn't have an idea for the lyrics yet, but I wanted to try something with a sort of classic country sound, kind of leaning in to Dave Leigh's comment: "...there's definitely an audience for men who sound like men. And let's face it, you sound like Ron Ely looked." Then I got a terrible joke about Four Coroners stuck in my head and wrote something from there. I don't think it quite turned out as a joke song, despite starting from a joke. Life is often both terrible and absurd.
Oh! Lumber 9 is mighty fine
While Lumber 8's just not so great
But -Man!- wouldn't we just be in heaven
If we lived in a house made from lumber eleven...
I have to walk over the freeway on my way to the bus stop. Some days that winds up being a bigger effort than others. When I start imagining myself being picked up by the wind and blown over the fence and down into the path of oncoming traffic, it often helps to count. Something about being focused on the numbers and not the dark fantasy, maybe.
This song was written for SpinTunes 16, Round 2. The challenge: Count Me In - Your lyrics must prominently feature counting. How and what you count is up to you - you can count up or down, by ones, fives, tens, logarithmically, exponentially; you can count steps in a process, miles in a journey, hours in a day...
Written for the SpinTunes contest challenge: "Write a song based on a scene from a book or movie."
This song is based on a scene from the 1963 movie The Raven, written by Richard Matheson and directed by Roger Corman. It's all immensely far removed from Edgar Allan Poe by this point. "Crow" fit my meter better than "raven," but Wikipedia says, "There is no consistent distinction between 'crows' and 'ravens'..." anyway, so I figured I could get away with it. (And it wouldn't be a bigger liberty than Matheson took with the original Poe...)
I had been keen to work in the line, "You mean, he only used his hands?!" but I couldn't figure out any way to say it that didn't sound like I was talking about something completely other than what I meant.
Instead, I was aiming more toward the mood I get from these lines: "Instead of facing life, I turned my back on it. I know now why my father resisted Scarabus; because he knew that one cannot fight evil by hiding from it. Men like Scarabus thrive on the apathy of others; he thrived on mine, and that offends me. By avoiding contact with the brotherhood, I've given him freedom to commit his atrocities unopposed."
It's another Song Fight song! It's a sort of goth folk number about the effort to keep a low profile while navigating systems one despises. The optional challenge was hand percussion and my track sort of has some, it's just that I ran it through my guitar effects pedal and it wound up sounding a bit like something the Radiophonic Workshop would have done in the 60s for Doctor Who.
