Day: July 23, 2023

New Song – Looting Corpses with You

Looting Corpses with you

(with a Latin beat, (alas I could not determine which one, but I will eventually) sung by a single voice with guitar, trumpet and percussion accompaniment, and descriptively it’s the ‘Dah dit dit dit Dah dit dit dit’ rhythm, whatever the hell that is)

This song is, quite obviously, dedicated to the memory of John Caspell.

 

The moon is high and bright
It sheds a ghostly blight
Upon a battlefield
With chilling points of light
The little things we like to do
Will make us ever close and true
Oh how I bless the moon
For I will soon
go looting corpses with you.

Their boys put up a fight
You know it don’t seem right
But we survived the fray
And now sneak out at night
The CO will find fools to scold
until he sees that shiny gold
Oh how I bless the moon
For I will soon
go looting corpses with you.

RIP Creede this one’s for you

It’s two in the morning, I just wrote and orchestrated an entire song in my head, and I’m crying so hard my snerking can be heard in the next county.

 

Herewith ‘The Parting Gift’ a bluegrass song for Creede Lambard

Opens with banjo and the bass sneaks in, other instruments following, everyone’s playing and singing together on ‘and now the train is boarding’ to maximize harmonies and audio density

Your voice gone from the room
Your song is a recording
Not much to lift the gloom
And now the train is boarding

bass really booms, all the other instruments wire weave; the voices on top are angry and desperate

I’m glad, I’m glad
that the batteries are dead
the times we had
always better in always better in my head

Instrumental break, starting with the bass, then to mandolin, then to octave mandolin, then to banjo, then a polyphonic explosion as they all try to outshout each other.

Much sparser accompaniment and vocal arrangement, with the voices taking turns.

I lost my final home
Soon after you had left us
And now I’m doomed to roam
With the dark songs that you gave us
Only my voice I lift
My mandolin is gone
It is your parting gift
I remember you in song

Much longer and more subdued instrumental break, everybody calming down and being sad and politely taking turns.

I’m glad, I’m glad
that the batteries are dead
the times we had
always better in always better in my head

 

 

for banjo, mandolin, octave mandolin, upright bass and at least four voices, all tenors and altos but if there’s a true ‘black hole’ bass voice I’ll allow it.