Category Archives: acoustic

Moonrise Over Alamitos Bay

Moonrise Over Alamitos Bay
From a promo page for TK’s side project, The Mutant Liberation Orchestra, where the new track below has also just been posted…

This represents a very definite sea change for The Mutant Liberation Orchestra — although keyboardist TK has been exploring polytonal improvisation since the first time he snuck into the piano room at his maiden aunt Tillies’s haunted old mansion in the hills above Pasadena.

As soon as he sat down at the battered old upright grand, he was overcome by the compulsion to spread his tiny hands wide across the old, yellowed ivory keys. Slipping into a state that a concerned girlfriend would, decades later, describe as “a scary, near-catatonic trance,” little TK’s fingers seemed to fly across the keys in patterns hard to comprehend — but repeating in intricate, interlocking melodic movements that circled ever wider.

When his aunt rushed into the room she stopped suddenly and began weeping…

Years later, TK would learn that she thought she heard the playing of her long-dead protoge, a frighteningly moody young European refugee composer who would later die in a fiery motorcar crash, plunging off a twisting mountain road after an argument with the then-voluptuosly passionate Tilly, his lover, his benefactor and — he said as he stormed out of her house, the keys to her ancient Packard limousine in his hands — his warden and taskmaster…

 Moonrise Over Alamitos Bay

more media formats…

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When they tell you it’s time to leave, by God, then it’s time to go

An angel came down from heaven...

 

Storytellers and poets have twisted literature around the lonely figure of the fallen angel since people started telling stories.

There’s something about that driven and tragic flight from grace that resonates with the moody and the manic and the wistfully philosophical, as well.

Why would someone leave paradise?

Why would someone turn his back on love and peace beyond knowledge only to flee to a world of desire, pain, and endless longing?

Why not?

Heaven always looked pretty boring to this tragic, moody poet…

Internet Archive page for this recording
previous AYoS version

ANGEL’S VACATION

He tried to do what was right
but it always turned out wrong
the heavenly host was not impressed
and he had to blow out of town

he came down to earth near Phoenix
in the middle of the summertime
he walked to the first bar he saw
and ordered whiskey, beer, and wine

An angel came down from heaven
hoping to get away
he stewed in the hotel bar all night
and baked by the pool all day

He pushed the desk clerk to a breakdown
and drove the other guests away
he punched out the hotel detective
and ran off with the pretty dark eyed maid

They laid out on the lam for 40 days and nights
and on the 41st they had to rest
the pretty dark eyed maid was all worn out
and the angel was scared to death

he knew they’d have no trouble tracking him down
angels have this certain glow
and when they tell you it’s time to leave,
by God, then it’s time to go

An angel came down from heaven
hoping to get away
he stewed in the hotel bar all night
and baked by the pool all day

(C)1990,2005, TK Major

[related song: Goin’ Home ]

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Shame

Don't tread on me -- and don't drag me through the mud of your hatred and greed! 

You want to talk about desecrating the flag of the United States of America?

How about making it a symbol around the world of rape, murder, corruption, greed, and wanton destruction?

It’s apparently easy for some to say, The world is wrong and we are right…

It rolls from their tongue. It’s second nature for them to blame the other guy because they seem to know in their heart of hearts that they are always right.

Maybe they think God talks to them and tells them what they do and think is right, like the current president of our great nation, certain in his own inerrancy as only a self-appointed messiah can be.

History is strewn with the twisted stories of these people who commit the most heinous crimes against man and nature and God with the apparent certainty that they are right and the world is wrong.

Yet those oblivious to the lessons of history — and certainly our current national leadership seem manifestly incapable of learning any lessons at all — doom themselves to repeat that sad history.

When they only harm themselves, I guess that’s their business.

But when they drag our flag and our beloved nation through the ignorance, selfishness, filth and hatred in their hearts — they wound us all.

Whether we like it or not, we cannot help but share the shame that they bring us.

Archive.org page
[multiple download/streaming formats]

first AYoS version
second AYoS version

HAVE U EMBRACED THE BEAST?

Have you embraced the beast?
I see the mark is on your face
Have you embraced the beast?
Are you a slave of greed and hate?

Have you embraced the beast?
Do you serve the war machine?
Have you embraced the beast?
Did you trade in your soul for the finer thinsg?

Have you embraced the beast?
Do your taxes buy bullets for fascist death squads?
Have you embraced the beast?
They’ll be coming to your hometown before too long . . .

Have you embraced the beast?
I see the mark is on your face
Have you embraced the beast?
Are you a slave of greed and hate?

Have you embraced the beast?

Copyright 1984
T.K. Major

Flag image courtesy: Free Clipart or Photos: www.ace-clipart.com

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Doll Eyes

XXXXX

 

 doll eyes [däl Iz]
(slang) : the flat, lifeless eyes of a drug addict

Internet Archive page

songwriter demo version‘ [soundclick page]

Just Like a China Doll

She’s got eyes
just like a china doll
They look painted on
and yet they’ve seen it all

All around Long Beach
and all the way to LA
the shattered lives are scattered
the hearts are spiked up on staves
— From the Ocean to the mountains
from the birthplace to the grave
Once you behold her
nothing will ever be the same

She’s got eyes
just like a china doll
They look painted on
and yet they’ve seen it all

Everywhere you go
everythings about the same
they wander around dazed
just barely whispering her name
— They walk in front of buses
they throw themselves under trains
but the sick smile on their faces
show those sorry saps are still glad she came

[bridge]
well I looked into her eyes
and I saw my life flash by
Now I wake up screaming
everytime I see a doll’s eyes

I looked into the void
and I saw myself fall in
i see it every time
i see it in her eyes
t’s always been

Here I stand the last man to fall
under her spell
a moment close to heaven
an ice age on the cold side of hell
and how can I face
the other lost souls I find
When I laughed at all of them and then now
here am I the last in line

She’s got eyes
just like a china doll
They look painted on
and yet they’ve seen it all

(C)1997, TK Major

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