Or whatever you call it when your studio is your living room.
The world is so big
then again it’s all so small…
I might be in your arms tomorrow night
or I might never make it home to you at all.
Anyhow, here’s a new recording with drums, bass, guitars, even a little electric organ kinda thing.
World So Big*
AYoS versions:
10/22/2005
8/4/2006
9/16/2006
*name changed from “The World Is So Big” (9/25/2007)
I‘ve got a mental block.
Well… I mean… that is to say, there’s this particular one that’s vexing me right now.
(Hell… I’ve got so many mental blocks, I don’t even know they’re there anymore. Like navigating one’s bedroom in the dark, I automatically circumnavigate them. They’re as unnoticeable to me now as a distortion in the space-time continuum, part of the field of everyday reality.)
Fortunately, this one is not exactly earth shaking.
But it does seem, for now, to be, once again, standing in the way of getting a decent version of this song, below, up on the web.
I keep hoping some singer or band out there will take the poor thing under their wing and do a decent version of it and send me a link… [hint, hint] … or something.
Previous versions have been shaky for a number of reasons — even within the wobbly quality orbit of AYoS — not the least of them being that I wrote a melody that was just a bit over my head as a singer (we’ll leave aside argument that, perhaps, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” isn’t just a little bit over my head as a singer).
This time, I tried to disguise my shaky grasp of my own melody with a willfully sloppy self-duet (of the midnight drunken choir variety). Unfortunately, the logsitical challenges of coordinating my small ensemble of personality fragments for the modest task of recording a couple of vocal and guitar tracks was apparently so great that I forgot to perform an important part of the song.
Midway through recording the lead guitar accompaniment I found myself thinking: Where’s that confounded bridge?
All Because of You
[this recorded version omits the bridge]
previous versions
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
lyrics
All Because of You
[includes lyrics for that confounding bridge]
[E~ g#m g#m]
He should have
seen it coming
but he never dreamed
he’d ever have to watch her leave
She laughed all the way to Austin
And she cried the rest of the
way to New Orleans
[g#m ~ f#m]
Baby Doll, it’s all because of you
You always sew destruction
No matter what ya say you’re trying to do
Now always get
whatever it is
you want
and as long as I’ve known you
You always want
what you ain’t got
I have known you
such a long long time
and you know I wouldn’t say
it if it wasn’t true
You don’t have a heart I know
but I’m recently convinced there’s no soul
inside of you
Yesterday’s toys you
throw them all away
you dont even watch
to see their paper hearts in the flames
Like a goddess before
the gods learned how to feel
In your universe your world is the
only one that’s real
[missing bridge: c#m ~ g#m ~]
(look here) Baby
I got the map on you
Every lie you tell
I can drill right through
Baby Doll the fall is coming soon
and when it falls
it’s all gonna be on you
[E~ g#m g#m]
He should ‘a
seen it coming
but he never dreamed
he’d have to watch her leave
(C)2007, TK Major
I was hoping for the kind of gritty neo-realism that informed some of the best songs of bands like Eric Burdon & the Animals… but what I ended up with was a couple of local insider references and a sadly obvious yet actually unintentional central pun. (Yeah, yeah, there are no accidents, I hear you. Nonetheless, I was oblivious, even when the first verse began with “junkies” and ended with “final score”…)
The Final Score
previous versions
Friday, January 20, 2006
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
lyrics
The Final Score
From the junkies in the Cooper Arms
to the whores of this old shore
I’ve seen the winners
I’ve seen the losers
and I’ve seen the Final Score….
I’ve seen all your tomorrows
and then a couple more
Ive seen the future, I’ve seen the past
I don’t wanna see no more
I’ve seen the fear across their faces
I’ve heard their anguished cries
I’ve felt the void explode within
after the dream dies
I know what’s gonna happen
yet I’ll never know what for
but I’ll bet the game begins again
after the Final Score
(C) 1997, 2006 TK Major
Somewhere, a long way away, he heard the alarm on his cell phone ring.
On the TV, someone was talking about Guy Lombardo. He reached out from the couch to stab the TV remote. Someone was talking about how, over the next day or two, western civilization as we knew it would be grinding to a near-standstill, despite the cheerfully over-confident predictions of the technocrats. He stabbed again, got up, started making a mug of espresso on the little Krups machine.
It was now about 10 minutes to zero, Y2K…
With a steaming mug of dark, dark joe held under his nose, he led himself back to the office and plunked down at his computer. He browsed the news on the web, checked in with a couple of his favorite BBs, where a handful of stay-at-homes were wishing each other a “happy millennium.”
He waited. In the other room he heard the live coverage cutting to Ghiradelli Square in San Francisco.
The hands finally ticked straight up… 3 hours after the flip into the new year, New York time.
For an hour or so he poked around the applications he had out in the field. No sign of impending Western Civilization collapse in his little corner of the world.
He padded out to the living room, where the TV still blathered on. A live shot of revelers drifting away from Times Square.
He went to bed and dreamt fitfully of moon colonies, robot housekeepers, and flying cars.
Triple Zip Flip
lyrics
Triple Zip Flip
Some people say its the end of the world
I say “C’mon all you boys and grab a girl”
Some people tell you it’s the end of time
I say “all the more reason to get off the dime”
It’s been a long long journey
hope you liked the trip
c’mon everybody
do the Triple Zip Flip
Maybe there’ll be famine, maybe flood
for sure there’ll be suffering and rivers of blood
but that’s just one more year like all the rest
another year older and closer to death
It’s been a long long journey…
The mighty shall tremble
the wicked shall fall
about the same time the good folks
learn how not to crawl
judgement will come
judgement is due
let’s just hope they don’t
judge — me and you
It’s been a long long journey…
its just like the prophet said long ago
first there is Knowledge then the neighborhood goes
one little taste it all gets way out of hand
write a few lines of code make a world out of sand
they say Information just wants to be free
so far it’s been trapped inside of you and me
but I hear that Info has got a new plan
go live in cyberspace and make a monkey out of man
It’s been a long long journey
hope you liked the trip
c’mon everybody
do the Triple Zip Flip
(C)1996 TK Major