I like clever songs. Silly songs. Novelty songs. I’ve attempted to write many such songs. I believe making someone laugh is one of the most important things you can do in life. But at some point in the last few years, sitting at the piano to pull together a new song began to feel weighty. If we were going to perform it night after night, it felt essential that each song mean something.
The two traditional routes were out. I’ve never been a fan of confessional songwriting, and End Times is a diverse bunch politically. But there is at least one thing we do all stand behind: science. Not just as a collection of facts about cool things, but as Ann Druyan put it:
It is a great tragedy that science, this wonderful process for finding out what is true, has ceded the spiritual uplift of its central revelations: the vastness of the universe, the immensity of time, the relatedness of all life, and life’s preciousness on our tiny planet.
Take a look at this Hubble ultra deep field photo.
To the naked eye, that patch of sky is a void between visible stars, one tiny patch of black in the sky, but when you look closer you find countless worlds. This is the world we live in. How can that not affect your views? Yet it’s difficult to find songs that express this.
That’s the realization that struck while I was struggling with a song about the more harmful branches of pseudoscience (the anti-vaccination movement in particular). I’d hoped to write something clever, but it was hard to shake off my rage and keep it light. On my coffee table was a copy of Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. It made me think about the great statement attributed to Sagan (though apparently unsourced): “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” I decided I was having trouble because I wasn’t saying what I meant: that the world is far more interesting and worthy of exploration than most of the drama we invent.
Here’s an mp3 of us playing it live on WDVX’s Blue Plate Special back in March. The lyrics are below.
We’ve been playing “Sound” live since December, but we’re still polishing it. I hope you enjoy this take, and maybe some day we’ll have a studio version.
Thanks for reading this. I hope to write more song explications like this as we begin to work them into the live set and make demos.
Sound Sound Sound
The world speaks as you and I speak
The starry seas, the tidal leaves parley together.
Syllable by syllable its coda repeats
Through peaceful eves or stormy weather.
So why does the music of last month’s newspapers
Pull on your heartstrings so much greater?
Put down that megaphone I do insist
And turn, yes, turn upon the abyss of…
Sound, sound everywhere
And not a drop of meaning,
Chitchat shed with idle care
While donning profound seeming.
Somewhere something incredible
Is waiting to be known,
Signals lost within the lull
Uncertain, faint, alone.
Listen to the stars
On the backyard radio.
Their blips and squeals have meaning
Above, beyond “Hello.”
Someone’s whispers interfere
With unattended thoughts.
Nonsense flitters lips to ear,
And great unknowns are lost.
This accelerating world
Will leave you trembling, pale.
There’s no escape from dreaming
When you let go of the stale.
Someone’s whispers interfere
With unattended thoughts.
Nonsense flitters lips to ear,
And great unknowns are lost.
Whereof one can’t speak,
Silent one must be
Scott Atkinson, a writer for MLive, listened to “Summer Song” a few days ago.
So imagine my surprise when I’m listening the first song on this band’s album, and what do I hear? You guessed it: coney dogs. Check out the song below. At 56 seconds in, there it is.
I don’t know what’s happening here. I can’t escape the coneys. But at least I’ve got some new good tunes to listen to while I eat them.
We may have to check out his Michigan coney recommendations when we head back next month.
Read more of “Coney Dogs Everywhere“.
Hey folks! We like to keep it fresh for you each night, and so make an effort to constantly add songs to our repertoire. Playing this style of music, there’s an inexhaustible number of classic songs we could be doing. Here some selections from our list of songs to try out and maybe learn.
After You’ve Gone
Ain’t Misbehavin’
Avalon
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Button Up Your Overcoat
Cheek to Cheek
Clean It Out
‘Eleven-thirty Saturday Night
Everybody Eats When They Come to My House
FDR Jones
I’ll See You in My Dreams
I’ll Shoot the Moon
Indiana, (Back Home Again…)
I’ve Found a New Baby
Je ne veux pas traveiller
Lady Sings the Blues
Limehouse Blues
Lullaby in Ragtime
Mack the Knife
Nice Work if You Can Get It
St Louis Blues
Some of These Days
Stormy Weather
Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do
That’s What I Call Sweet Music
These Foolish Things
La Vie en Rose
You Rascal, You
Putting it here is no guarantee that we’ll decide it’s suitable for our sound! So please, no requests for the above just yet. However, if you have any favorite standards from the Great American Songbook (or recently composed numbers that would fit), comment to let us know and we’ll give it a shot!
A few songs before the debut of “Wake Up Bix” last week, we played another song live for the first time: “Medea.” Here’s a video that explains the first verse:
Peter Ward’s TEDTalk on mass extinctions:
Why write songs about extinction events? The only things I can think of that are more dramatic than that are star formation and star death. Like a good creation myth, the oxygen catastrophe is a story of why we’re here and why there’s suffering in the world.
For how the third verse ties in, I recommend you look up the Lars von Trier film Medea over any starring Tyler Perry.
Lyrics:
A long long time before you were even here
Before your ancestors landed on these shores
The whole world suffocated on something in the air
But it overtook them so slowly they kept on making more
There were green things and brown things growing endlessly
Spilling out their toxins into air and into sea
Every word I’m telling you is true
So please believe me when I say that all of this created you
You can’t divide everything without leaving a remainder
You can’t boil cabbage without splitting a few heads
There’s just so much that you can wrap around your brain, dear
So few hours we aren’t asleep inside our beds
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re the precipitate
Even if you swear to change, the hour’s growing late
Every word I’m telling you is true
So please believe me when I say that this applies you
In ancient Greece there was a man who had a golden fleece
He had a wife and kids but decided to send them back
The first wife she wept and wailed and couldn’t find no peace
For revenge she took her kids aside for a fade to black
The people speak in horror of this woman going mad
But deep inside each one of us is a Medea who’s been had
Every word I’m telling you is true
So believe me when I say that this could happen to you
People are asking about our song “Wake Up Bix.” Here’s an explanation.
The above is from Ken Burns’ Jazz. When I saw that again (and watched the bioflick Bix), I knew I had to write a song. His trumpet has become one of the sounds I hear in my head when I’m writing music. (If only I could write to match his ability! Especially in phrasing.)
The lyrics:
Wake up, Bix
If you don’t
Want to miss another minute of this
Open up your eyes
Shake away that sleep
And pull yourself in from the deep
Second fiddle’s
Not such a drag
You know most of us live in the middle
Confess your fear
To the open sea
And realize it ain’t better to leave
Some will settle
Some will bend
Some will let the very road take the pedal
But not you
You’re head is strong
Even though you might be wrong
But one hair
Can always break
The back of the mule unprepared
So please let
A friend take some weight
After all you might find they relate
Wake up, Bix
So you won’t
Ever miss another minute of this
Don’t be afraid
Don’t be scared
Don’t worry ’bout how you compare
You can’t always
Be the best
But you still have to live one more day
Keep your feet dry
And when you’re okay
You’ll realize that you want to stay
