Song nine - Legion of the Hungry

I am so full of pie. I made dinner and pie. And the pie, which was apple, was also very delicious with a great crust and gooey pecan sugary buttery wonderfulness is now sitting in my stomach kabitzing with the mushroom risotto. Oh, I forgot to tell you: I can cook too!

Today's song was written by request, he said "put a ghost in it, see what happens." So this is what happened.

If you want to suggest a song topic then forward a ticket confirmation to me at vermillionlies (at) yahoo.com. Tickets here: Ticket for Jan 22nd show in SF.

Still playing with the Concertmate-380, the backing track is the "Horror" setting, I added bass, and other effects. The lyrics are intentionally surreal and reference a few inside jokes and moments among friends.

I like song nine. Not that I would perform it or keep working on it, but it surprised me and that's always a good thing.

This project is forcing me to really stretch myself in uncomfortable ways that are yielding amazing elements of my songwriting. Having recording ability is especially gratifying as it allows me to sculpt the sound even more.

I imagine I'll get back to just guitar or piano but for now I'm enjoying the exploration of digital sound and mixing.

Another interesting thing about this project is just thinking about what exactly makes a song. This is what wikipedia says:

"A song is a musical composition. In the classical tradition, songs contain vocal parts that are performed,'sung,' and feature words (lyrics), commonly accompanied by musical instruments (exceptions would be a cappella songs). The words of songs are typically of a poetic, rhyming nature, although they may be religious verses or free prose. The words are the lyrics."

What makes it a good song is entirely different. Good means different things to different people though and sometimes context means everything. 01/08/09 - Let's Sing! for example: good in context, but if listened to on it's own without reference it might just seem pointless. (And maybe it does anyway.)

Did I mention the pie? My whole house smells like pie now. I would eat more pie if there was any more room in my pie stomach. Maybe if I do more yoga I can stretch out my pie stomach and fit more in.

Also, the kitten was given a little kitten bed by a friend of kittens in Boston. The bed arrived in a box with lots of cat toys and a red velvet dress which was presumably for my sister and I to share. The kitten got his own bed - he doesn't have to share, mostly because my other cat is the size of a 15 pound trout and too big and trout-ish to fit into a tiny red kitten bed. Anyway...the kitten is all curled up in the kitten bed, which is set at a jaunty angle on the couch, and between the pie smell and the kitten cuteness and the trout cat I simply cannot concentrate on my songwriting.

This is hard people!

And yes, I still ask myself every day why I signed myself up for this, I have a band which consumes all my energy (booking, promoting, touring, rehearsing, ordering merch, corresponding with everybody on the planet, handing out flyers, riding around SF on my bicycle to put up posters...) and then I have two art shows in February to get ready for, and I like to do yoga every day which takes 2-3 hours out of my day, and I have a boyfriend who wishes I didn't have to spend so much time on the computer recording songs, and sometimes I do have to sleep.

But I know why I signed up for this: because I am crazy. I have a lot of creative energy and not enough outlets.

My soul is too big for my body, I spill out all over the place. If I don't give myself room to spill over I get very very....dark. Which isn't really very me, because I sing songs about giant squid eating all your cheese and I love kittens.

Also I need to make sure my pie intake is at a high enough level because without pie life sucks. Really....what did they do before pie? They lived in caves and ate rocks. Life was hard and unpleasant, that's why everyone died. Too bad really because pie was just around the historical corner, but I guess it means more for me.


Oh and here are the words to the song, also referred to as "lyrics"

I am the ghost of a giant squid
I'm going to your house to swim
I'm going to eat all of your cheese slices
And your dog

I am the ghost of a giant raccoon
I'm going to get hungry soon
I'm going to eat all of your watercolors
of unicorns

I am the ghost of a giant ghost
I'm going to use you for a host
I'm going to make you eat all of your own crayons
and your own fingers

We are the legion of the hungry ghosts
We are the legion of the hungry ghosts
We are the legion of the
We are the legion of the
We are the legion of the
hungry
ghosts

ooOOOoooOOOOOoooOOOOooooO......



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