monday song #29: thanksgiving
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number 29, the penultimate installment of “connect the dots.”
mr. sullivan swims back to the day he lost his son. thanksgiving 1985. More »
monday song #28: behind the blue
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this is the start of a three song death scene. clarity is coming for mr. sullivan, and so is the end of this song cycle. the first step is acceptance. at that point he will be opened up to his core. and then the curtains will fall.
as introduced at the end of “the button,” as mr. sullivan sinks toward his end, his son approaches, asking him to stay. this song is in the voice of the son, who has had more time to adjust to these strange surroundings. More »
monday song #27: the button
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probably the most depressing song yet, but i’m sure i can top it.
after two weeks of revery, mr. sullivan emerges back in his hospital room. things continue downhill.
not much to say here. the battlefield has shrunk to the point of the few inches that separate reality from dreams, and for our hero, the lines are drawing still closer. More »
monday song #26: the flowers of romance
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number 26. five percent of the way there…
on an odd association, his son’s war experience shifts into his experience in the armed services in the early fifties, which reads more like a vacation. a singular shapshot of freedom and ease and shameless hedonism. how much is real and how much has been rung through the simplifying cauterizer of time is unknown. though it sounds like he had fun.
monday song #25: time flies
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i thought i’d write a few little ditties before getting back to the story line. my new music room has windows. there’s grass and sky out there. i can even see a piece of the space needle. i felt the happy songs coming…
no such luck. More »
monday song# 24: i.v.
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with monday song number 24, I have released as many songs in the past five and a half months, as I officially released in a decade of billie burke estate. the power of deadlines. and simplified production values. and ten years’ practice…
i was planning to head to the ’60s for our next chapter, but i changed my mind at the last minute and wrote this little ditty on sunday morning. we are back at the hospital bed, fresh from a pair of awkward reminiscences. More »
monday song #23: first communion
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number 23. the mystical number for fans of psychic tv and throbbing gristle. and the chicago bulls.
i realized after i posted last week’s song that that the memory parade of our protagonist had begun in the late 30s with a 30s style song. figured the next milestone might happen in the early 50s, and so i went with a ‘kansas city’ style boogie woogie early 50s song. a high school memory of his first foray into the world of comingling.
monday song #22: a long long time
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here’s the second installment of ‘connect the dots.’ after framing the protagonist’s delirium, we fly back through the years to a time of relative happiness. but unbeknownst to the narrator, all is not as well as he had hoped in his past. it is an escape for him into his childlike mind, but there is more going on than meets the eye. More »
monday song #21: the night sky
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number 21. as promised, the first in a song cycle of unspecified length.
in the first installment we meet the central character in the last hours of his life. it’s something of a prologue to the stories that will follow: memories and reflections of a life now past. the door is wide open. though he’s on the border of delirium, and his mind is less than whole, he will swim through images of his younger days. More »
monday song #20: the devil’s dictionary
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[show note: i'm playing tonight at the pub below vios in north seattle - 65th street and 20th ave. i'm going on at 7. no cover. kids fly free. excellent food. see all you seattle-ites there. this will probably be the last show for a while.]
song twenty. it took me ten years to release 24 songs on two albums, and it has taken five months to release 20 songs. i am really enjoying this process.
so i had the general idea “shy is just another word for unfriendly” for at least three years now. i just couldn’t turn it into anything. so i decided that this week i would tackle it. it proved to be a formidable opponent. the fact i hadn’t recorded anything by 5pm on sunday says a lot. but there was a late drive that decided the game. More »
