#12DayHeliotropism continues; download the album FREE on bandcamp now! Here's the resolution to "Blank Page," in more ways than one. Be sure to read all the way to the bottom, there is even more new music available for FREE download!
I’m writing this song while riding in the car
from Tampa to Gainesville, couple hours, not too far.
I’m curious to see just what will come out.
Hopefully before I’m done I’ll know what it’s about.
An experiment in writing, I hope not to disappoint.
A poem on the fly, a rhyme scheme slightly disjointed.
I need to write, I need to have a little discipline,
or else I’ll have no songs to sing with you, my kickass friends.
Sometimes a little discipline is really all it takes
to wake us from our stupor, help us see through the haze,
the bullshit all around us, the violence of the state.
They want us in our apathy to simply waste away.
What’s the reason in the schools the arts are first to go?
Well, you know, it’s we the artists’ job always to show
the way things are; we artists must choose never to ignore
the violence, incompetence, injustice, endless war.
Now I’ll step off my soap box, I just wanted to say:
though it may seem small, this really is the greatest way
to subvert Pax Americana, to quietly smash the state -
So go out there and sing, dance, paint, write, smile, and create.
I just wrote this song while riding in the car
from Tampa to Gainesville, couple hours, not too far.
I’m curious to see just what has come out
and now that I think I’m done, I know what it’s about:
deciding for ourselves what this life will be about.
Story behind the poem and song...
I really did write this poem while on the road. I was on the Eagles & Snowbirds Winter Tour (2010) with Noah Eagle and his sister Amber, riding and playing around the southeastern US; and this song, like Blank Page, was also the result of just sitting down with pen & pad and churning out a poem.
The music for Sing didn't come about til the following summer (2011), around the same time that I released Protest Songs (Are Dead). Indeed, it was intended to be a follow up to the new album, a direct response. The Protest Songs were mostly laments. They were personal. Heartbreaking. Convicting (I hope). And they were absolutely necessary - they were a match in the cavern of our society that revealed the dire position that we are in.
But I realized as I finalized the album that what we really needed wasn't a short-lived match in the heart of the tunnel, but a light at the end of it. And perhaps a flashlight to guide us along the way (am I playing out the light analogy?) So I sought, found, and inserted an audio clip of 60s protest singer Odetta in an interview. In response to the question, "can [music] change a country?" she said,
I'm looking at the Civil Rights movement. And a lot of change came along with the area of songs that were sung but they were sung together. It was like communion. Now, how far can that change anything? I don't know. But it can bring people together. It has.
I included this clip at the very end of the album to indicate that my music would be moving in a new direction. I wanted to take up the mantle that Odetta described. I wanted to write songs that people could sing along to - that we could sing together - that we might ultimately and quietly smash the state with our unbridled creativity. I wanted to write songs that show the way forward, my vision for a future where peace and justice are brought to bear on Earth as it is in heaven. Sing was the first example of such songs (interestingly enough, the Occcupy movement began just a month or two after the song was completed). And now, just over a year later, I've released a whole album of such songs - Heliotropism.
Occupy Raleigh joined us to sing gang vocals on this track.
Live At Occupy Raleigh
In honor of this blessed 9th day of #12DayHeliotropism, and as a token of my thanks to Occupy Raleigh, I am also releasing the album Live At Occupy Raleigh on my bandcamp page - download it for FREE or leave a tip!
Here's Sing live at OR:
from Tampa to Gainesville, couple hours, not too far.
I’m curious to see just what will come out.
Hopefully before I’m done I’ll know what it’s about.
An experiment in writing, I hope not to disappoint.
A poem on the fly, a rhyme scheme slightly disjointed.
I need to write, I need to have a little discipline,
or else I’ll have no songs to sing with you, my kickass friends.
Sometimes a little discipline is really all it takes
to wake us from our stupor, help us see through the haze,
the bullshit all around us, the violence of the state.
They want us in our apathy to simply waste away.
What’s the reason in the schools the arts are first to go?
Well, you know, it’s we the artists’ job always to show
the way things are; we artists must choose never to ignore
the violence, incompetence, injustice, endless war.
Now I’ll step off my soap box, I just wanted to say:
though it may seem small, this really is the greatest way
to subvert Pax Americana, to quietly smash the state -
So go out there and sing, dance, paint, write, smile, and create.
I just wrote this song while riding in the car
from Tampa to Gainesville, couple hours, not too far.
I’m curious to see just what has come out
and now that I think I’m done, I know what it’s about:
deciding for ourselves what this life will be about.
Story behind the poem and song...
I really did write this poem while on the road. I was on the Eagles & Snowbirds Winter Tour (2010) with Noah Eagle and his sister Amber, riding and playing around the southeastern US; and this song, like Blank Page, was also the result of just sitting down with pen & pad and churning out a poem.
The music for Sing didn't come about til the following summer (2011), around the same time that I released Protest Songs (Are Dead). Indeed, it was intended to be a follow up to the new album, a direct response. The Protest Songs were mostly laments. They were personal. Heartbreaking. Convicting (I hope). And they were absolutely necessary - they were a match in the cavern of our society that revealed the dire position that we are in.
But I realized as I finalized the album that what we really needed wasn't a short-lived match in the heart of the tunnel, but a light at the end of it. And perhaps a flashlight to guide us along the way (am I playing out the light analogy?) So I sought, found, and inserted an audio clip of 60s protest singer Odetta in an interview. In response to the question, "can [music] change a country?" she said,
I'm looking at the Civil Rights movement. And a lot of change came along with the area of songs that were sung but they were sung together. It was like communion. Now, how far can that change anything? I don't know. But it can bring people together. It has.
I included this clip at the very end of the album to indicate that my music would be moving in a new direction. I wanted to take up the mantle that Odetta described. I wanted to write songs that people could sing along to - that we could sing together - that we might ultimately and quietly smash the state with our unbridled creativity. I wanted to write songs that show the way forward, my vision for a future where peace and justice are brought to bear on Earth as it is in heaven. Sing was the first example of such songs (interestingly enough, the Occcupy movement began just a month or two after the song was completed). And now, just over a year later, I've released a whole album of such songs - Heliotropism.
Occupy Raleigh joined us to sing gang vocals on this track.
Live At Occupy Raleigh
In honor of this blessed 9th day of #12DayHeliotropism, and as a token of my thanks to Occupy Raleigh, I am also releasing the album Live At Occupy Raleigh on my bandcamp page - download it for FREE or leave a tip!
Here's Sing live at OR:
