LISTEN HERE (SONGS 49-53)
Week #49: When Are the Robots Taking Over?
The title kind of says it all. This is post-punk-pop creation inspired, I'm sure, by the fact that I recently saw the band X in concert. It's also a nod to They Might Be Giants, who were the initial inspiration for the entire "53 Songs in 53 Weeks" project that will be drawing to a close in just a few short weeks!
Week #50: Stuck in Traffic Blues
Week #50 means it must be February and we are counting down to the final song in this 53-week project.
This is a pretty straightforward blues number. I've had the line about making three left turns instead of a right in my head for years and I always knew I'd make a song out of it -- I just didn't realize it would come so close to the end of this venture.
The opening line is an homage to Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Matchbox," in which he sings that he's "sittin' here wonderin' will a matchbox hold my clothes." In an altered form, Matchbox became a hit first for Carl Perkins and then was recorded by the Beatles.
Week #51: Four a.m. (Pavane pour une infante défunte)
We ring in week 51 of the 53 weeks project with a melancholy song.
Before a friend of mine passed away recently, she asked me if I would write a sea shanty to sing at her burial.* Her other request was that Maurice Ravel's "Pavane pour une infante défunte" be played, as well. When I listened to the Ravel piece, I realized it had the makings of a song if I could rearrange the piano parts slightly to accommodate the lyrics.
Then, when I went in search of a public domain piano version that I could easily splice into a song, I discovered that I wasn't the first person to have this idea. The jazz standard "The Lamp is Low" by composers Peter DeRose and Bert Shefter is adapted from the same material. I tucked this knowledge into the back of my head, but my slightly disconnected brain misfiled it as "The Last Lamp," which in turn later morphed into "The Last Leaf," which is the title of an O. Henry story I've long admired.
So -- long story short -- by the time I finally got around to committing lyrics to paper, this song became both a tribute to my friend, but also to the power of hope, inspired by the O. Henry story that I erroneously had thought had something to do with the jazz version.
I hope you enjoy it.
* I will record that sea shanty soon, but it will fall outside the scope of this project, which is fast coming to a close.
Week #52: Into the Woods, Part III: Farewell (or, Distortions on a Theme by Mendelssohn)
Well, here we are -- week 52 in the "53 Songs in 53 Weeks" project and we present the final ambient/classical/experimental piece in the series. (I continue to be amused by the fact that the really weird pieces are the ones I release under my given name, while the more straightforward pop music is made under a pseudonym. We call this the Donald Westlake/Richard Stark conundrum.)
This is the third in a trio of pieces called "Into the Woods." (You can listen to Part 1 at https://youtu.be/fGqL9MhI6Lg?si=v5nTt-RJDuJj7g3s and Part 2 at https://youtu.be/oXzpmQ_V6Hs?si=TAE2mC1Z3KN17ni4.)
The basis of this piece is "Der Jäger Abschied" by Felix Mendelssohn. I took an LP recording of the piece from the early 20th century and sliced it into sections, using those fragments and motifs as the basis for a new work. Then, I took the original German text of the song, used Google to translate it into English, and had a female A.I. voice read it. (That voice sounds suspiciously like a well-known Hollywood actress, but it is all computer generated.)
As per usual, the imagery in the video is also A.I.-generated, using the lyrics as prompts for paintings. Some of them are quite nice, though all are fairly anodyne.
As for song #53, it will not only make its premiere at my big show at ProArts Playhouse this Thursday, February 22, I will literally write the song on stage. Yep, I will have a list of prompts and someone will pick one out of a hat and away we’ll go. If you want to see what it’s like to work without a net — and enjoy a lot of really terrific music — please come join me this week for the celebration. Details and tickets at https://proartsmaui.org/music-shows/
COMING SOON
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