Originally, this piece was to be about my music and how said music has been influenced by the works and/or musics of others, namely bands like Copeland, Northstar, Bright Eyes, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, and more. I compiled a list, at random, off-from the top of my head, in order to display to you (THE reader) just how much I randomly value each band whose lyrics I consider BETTER, ACTUAL works of art. As always, there will ALWAYS be ONE MORE band, to add to the list, something like promising TO infinity, something like the rather relevant harmonic series. And while THAT could be cool, to spend the rest of my life adding elements to a set, I’ll skip it. I’ll, instead, focus my attentions, whatever THOSE may be, on the creation and making of Alien Pop, my first, and currently only, real musical release. I can’t believe that doing something official took me so long. Said EVERY bureaucrat, EVER, and I
Now, I won’t pretend to remember every single detail but I’ll do my best.
So, I’m teaching. Some students find my music, the odd-pure-folk stuff, real idiosyncratic tunes, on the internet. Firstly, just think about how weird that is. You go to school for a long ass time, to teach people and make music, which the people then find. Your ACTUAL ROLE is to teach and HELP SUCCEED. But, I’ll be damned if THAT isn’t teaching too. You know, exposing them to new music in that way, from someone they very well COULD look up to. Dangle. Here, the course was Calculus 2, the university: CU Boulder. It was OK there, and I generally enjoyed my time working there. However, whatever. You know: NOT EVERY SALOON HAS BUNKS. OR EVEN BEER.
10 MEN, ENJOYING 11 BEERS
13 CATS, SIPPING FROM 13 BOWLS
ONE HAVING 10, MEN
AND BOWLS
Wow, do I really know how to get off topic. So, the students found my music and liked it. I had only been playing for a few years as RYTHUR, something I started, doing, in force some time in 2022, following my finally finishing the PhD. Talk about an album. Yes, I should. They liked what they were hearing, and not just for the sake-goodness of grades, which do matter but not like they-I think they do. Like I DID. But, either way and oh, how much does it energize one, be this one a teacher, or musician, or odd-ball, or me, to hear good things about their work. To craft original things and have people LIKE them is actually REALLY FUCKING WEIRD, if you think about it. For, ever, ever. Around the time of these compliments, and in possession of my new, charged perspective on releasing music, performing in general, I set out to accomplish. As such, I started writing the sort of songs I thought COULD go well together, in the Fall of 2024. One of them had existed for some time, namely I Wanna Know, which is the only track of the album later re-labeled. I had to rename the track I Wanna Knw, to set it apart from the Folk version I usually play.
FOLK MUSIC, IN THE FORM OF A JELLY, SOLD IN A TOURIST TRAP
I keep calling it an album but really it’s just an EP or Mini-Album. As always, I’m OK with this. Like Marlowe-Gould says in The Long Weekend, a film directed by Robert Altman. I love Altman. He was an excellent director. But, yeah, one song had existed. But, following something of a date with a rather offensive woman, I wrote Elegant Wood. And, following this, I penned Dream Sequence and/or Under Your Covers, in whatever order I now cannot remember. As if. It’s TOO convenient to remember TOO much. But is it> Either way, this brings us to the first and the last tracks on the record. Oh, it’s a whole record now? Affirmative [in that Flight of the Conchords robot voice]. Dr. Outtro came last, following my writing From On High. And when I say wrote these songs, I, as yet, mean the lyrics, the chords, and the vocal melodies, enough to play the song. This and whatever bowling-bumpering it takes to bring it all to a close. It DOES take a lot to get to this point with songs. I do it all the time, &so know. Less so, and with even more effort and time involved, there’s the rather uncommon ritual of writing for an entire band. Multiple instruments, some real some unreal, even if actually real. Not many artists do this.
DO WHAT?
DANCES, FOR FIVE MINUTES STRAIGHT, SAYING NOTHING
THAT
I love writing music SO MUCH that I cannot actually stop doing it. Best times, worst times:;:; music. And I’m talking THIS ever since I left home, give or take. Because there’s a lot that gets added to a song as it’s written, lost too, a lot goes into writing music. I’m not sure which happens more often, the addition of a new line or the ejection of an entire chorus, but that stuff happens. As I write lyrics, I usually have the song playing, tones and all, inside my head. This makes the creation of the song an exercise of approximating whatever sound, is in your head. Honestly, this could very well be my favorite part of being a song-writer. I don’t know if everyone else hears music like this, and therefore writes music like this, but it’s what I do. I think nothing of it. Like breathing, or playing basketball on a nice court in some sun nice, too. At this point, I had enough to begin tracking the songs, determining the length of segments and where in the sound space each new instrument would go. As yet, we have acoustic guitar and vocals, nothing more nothing less. We have timing and time signature, tempo. All of this is needed to get to what I consider written.
And, once again, I know.
IMAGE OF WRITER WRITING A SONG ABOUT WRITING A SONG ABOUT
WRITING, IN GENERAL
George C. Scott. What a film. But, when it comes to the album, let me not go too far down any holes too fast. Let me take a break and discuss the lyrics of the tracks a bit. I guess I’ll do this by track, in order. From On High began as a song completely about drug use, meaning pharmaceuticals too. The chorus was PATHETIC, something along the lines of “You ain’t gotta be high to get through life, but it certainly helps.” Yeah, I know. Call the clinic. A bona fide addict has entered the discussion, wearing nothing more than 4 ounces of clothing total. You do the math. But, no, I did not keep the chorus. Well, I did, but I got rid of the lyrics. And I’m glad I did. So it’s a song with ONLY verses and a bridge, in terms of lyrics. This reminds me of GMCFOSHO, and how he had that one chorus that actually had lyrics but played as “No Chorus.” This is what I mean. There’s no chorus in the song, but there is, too. As always:
What?
AN IMAGE, OF AN ANIMAL, WRITING SONGS
ALL HUMAN SONGS ARE ALSO MONKEY SONGS
THE SOUNDS OF ostensibly ELEVATED MONKEYS
Moving on.
Personally, I like the dorky flow of the raps on the track. I like when it feels like I shouldn’t be doing something, when I SHOULD feel embarrassed, but don’t. I generally DON’T feel embarrassment, at least not relevantly well. At least not until like 24 years later. Once again, what a film. Or idea, I guess. For a sequel. From On High ends up being about how good one can have it in life merely by carrying along something, anything, that makes them happy. Call it a GREAT time, a NICE girlfriend, or a FAT ASS blunt. Reminder: If I am unable to find work for too long, I will have no choice but to have enter the porn industry. When On High, no segue, you end up doing things like ceasing your bark to bite, which means taking action on things, FINALLY. You end up putting lynx upon your links, which is to say you make a big cat out of your network. Wow, this is REALLY starting to sound like a Linkedin post. My apologies. From On High, you may end up with too many tones upon your dome, like I do. Have. Will have. Things like Sunday morning breakfast making lists of other lists is both a play on making food and R programming, both of which come along quite nicely when actually happy-high-happy-ho. And it’s good.
TWO MEN ON A SINGLE SEGWAY
COPS IN PURSUIT
ONE OF THEM STOLE IT
trivia: From On High, as instructed to Simone and mentioned within the liners, is supposed to sound like a rapper at their first rap battle, one having no one else around. Hence my inclusion of plosives and other imperfections.
I could go on and tell you what each line means, but then the song would, eventually, mean less to you and more to me. So, let’s not do that my friends,. Let’s move on to a crowd-favorite. This is a song that makes people turn their heads in pride when I play live. I busk often, which is a nice way to gauge how people feel about your music. If you’re making money doing it, then you’re probably good enough to make money doing it. Elegant Wood, as mentioned earlier is about a girl whom I went on one date with. She was nice, but overall not for me. And that’s OK too. She was a singer, hence the line “her voice is just like: Elegant Wood.” Essentially, I’m saying that I’d really like to bang her. Isn’t this every song? Ever. It is also supposed to make you think of being out among the trees, seeing something special, and hearing it sing to you, silently, but over much louder affairs.
LIKE THE COPS STEALING A SEGWAY
The line I’m most proud of in this song is: “Because inherently we venerate the vehemently innate.” As if that wasn’t grade-level: nerd enough. I mean it’s true. We see a mountain and call it beautiful. We hear the songs of a bird, as a good thing. Well, most birds. And, from where I’m kneeling right this very moment, I can hear some of these birds. It’s nice, man. If not pulchritudinous, as I say in my Academic Documents. So, I’m back after having taken an entire night’s sleep. I’m feelin’ good tomorrow is about like how I feel. The sleep was good and I’m up, typing this piece, well before noon. No coffee shop. Just me, the birds, and any creeps. Because, there’s ALWAYS the creeps. Now that THAT’S out of the way, let me get back to work. Once again, well before noon. You’re supposed to think it’s like sun-up. Nope. It’s 10 and half AM. I feel good.
MUSIC VIDEO: MAN DANCING
All jest aside, THIS is the point of Elegant Wood. Beyond THOSE thoughts of preliminaries and coming-before-nows, there’s this constant sense that you’re having fun, either with me against me, or some mixture of both. But, check your feet. They’re probably moving. That’s fun. I reflect on this kind of fun all the time, in that my making the kinds of songs others actually like makes me feel accomplished, like I’m doing something, am worthy of something. %:-)% Anything. Another good line is “Today is just the sum of other todays.” I find this line VERY FUNNY. That happens too. You know, when you have to take some time/minutes to understand you’re own words, what YOU’RE saying, MAN! As always: WO***TOO! That’s women too. E. Wood, not to be confused with J. Wood(s) wouldn’t exist be it not for woman, specifically that one from that one date. I’ll finish about this song by speaking about the chorus.
The chorus…
JUST HOW F***ING BLAND OF A TRANSITION WAS that???
IS THIS how it’s made?
HOW is THIS made?
The chorus consists of a few repeated sentences. As with most, I guess.
The lines are:
I’m feelin’ good tonight, though I know that this may not work out
These emotions are real, and this couch was just made to feel.
I’m feelin’ good tomorrow, though I know that this may end in sorrow
These emotions are good, and her voice is just like: Elegant Wood.
So, her voice is like a song? Maybe that’s what I meant? Who the hell knows. You can see from these two sentences that the whole thing is about feelin’ good. It;s also about the stuff that comes before the thing, the beginnings. The gut. Stuff like that. Oh, and my reason for liking that TOMORROW SUM line is that a woman, about 20, at one of my performances, had a noticeable face of shock at the line. It was like the kind of face you could slap on some stupid ass YouTube shit. Which is to say, most of it. But, I kinda digress. Oh, and since I would like to keep this thing interesting for newcomers and everyone else, let me throw in some trivia. LOL.
IMAGE OF A GROUP HAVING FUN
BUT DOING very POORLY AT THE TRIVIA EVENT THEY’RE ATTENDING
COVERED IN THE BEER OF OTHERS
trivia: This couch was just made to feel has many meanings. But, in the way that I sing feel, you can see, I hope, that the couch is merely made to fail. Designed Obsolescence, hidden in a pop song. Anarchy! Anarchy!
A STOP SIGN, UPSIDE DOWN
INDICATES NOT STOP?
DOESN’T STOP, REGARDLESS
STOPPED HERE. That about wraps up Elegant Wood for me. I love this song, and so does Simone, the person who mixed and mastered Alien Pop, the very EP I am now discussing. Oh, and this is not a sales pitch. It’s merely an effort, to get you to understand me a little bit better. Maybe too much, but who care. I DON’T CARE; I GO HOME AND DRINK BEER. A man I used to work with in a Meat Department, in Florida, in an Albertsons, used to say that all the time. THAT. Then he would leave with a NEW 24-pack EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.Given, the sheer mass of this consumptional campaign, I hope he’s OK now. I miss U, little man. Little Asian Man. Next on the (mini-) album is Under Your Covers. In general, this is one of the weirdest songs I have ever written. And speaking of writing, please remind me to talk about chords, in a minute, Dear Reader. The woman here, for me, is ALL and NONE. I didn’t have ANY specific woman in mind when writing this one. As such, the lyrics are probably about WOMEN IN GENERAL. Possibly even LOVERS IN GENERAL. The verses, of this track, tend to be about falling in love and HAVING sex. Is there ANYTHING else to WRITE?
Else if.
WOMAN AS MAN AS WOMAN, STANDING AT EARLY COMPUTER CONCEPT
I do mention one woman in the song, Maria of the Log, not a real name, which is to say: Maria 2. I have dated precisely two Marias, and so Nth Maria could work too. I never thought about it until now. But, yes, the log thing is TRUE. What a beautiful weekend. At the end of it, and quite randomly, I saw Severn, in a parking lot outside of business, offered him some olives, in a sweaty bag. Naturally, the olives coming from my trunk, and being held in an UNOFFICIAL bag, he declined. Good on you. You had GOOD parents. Dude. Oh, and I don’t hate you. I just got really alienated. Those years were part of the reason I was able to write this album. Dude. One line I really like is “I hope I’m sitting here one day, you put your hand on mine.” What a simple way to express what you want in life, in a simple gesture, using elementary English speech, about love. It’s all so nice. The rest of the verses, give or take, are about love and/or sex. All the lines. Including the chorus, which is odd. Something of an ODD.BEAST. I INTENTIONALLY switched to the relative major key for it. It made sense. So, you have the rather eccentric:
You’re the kind of woman that makes me nervous inside (ADJY)
You give me butterflies (PLAIN WHITE T’S)
In jars big enough to hold the world twice over (COPELAND)
You can call me Red Rover (R KELLY, BEFORE WE KNEW)
When I’m Under Your Covers (JOHN MAYER)
Makin’ love!!! (JOSH GROBAN)
Now, in case you’re not privy to the parentheticals, those are supposed to be the sounds I was going for in each line. Talk about some trivia. Talk about non-
trivial, TOO. As you gander across the list of things I was trying to sound like, all in one chorus, you’ll see just how interesting my song-writing can be. I do VERY weird things, things like wearing a cheap dress from the thrift store during recording, so as to get in better touch with the very CONCEPT of a woman. Talk about STRANGE. These are all things you cannot hear directly in the record, and that’s cool. That’s cool. As for HOW I’m singing each of these lines, my goal was to make it all sound as EMO as possible. But, I also aimed the WHOLE THING at WORLD MUSIC, as I say in the liner notes. And speaking of them, I must mention SANDRA. I met her on Instagram many years ago, something like 10+. Then, At some point, we became friends, good friends. Following this, she took to doing work for me, as well as a bunch of other things, too. She’s great. And so, she did the art for the album, too. Because, I have no idea HOW SHE DO. I helped her with the liners, but SHE’S the ARTIST. As for my part, I am a fiend for design within space, so that’s what’s there, at the words. Maybe that and some sabotage, but who knows. Fancy Dumpster.
THE WHOLE WORLD, IS| DUMPSTER.
FIRE, TOO.
POOR WORLD.
Next comes the oldest track of the record. I Wanna Knw. In the folk form I usually play it, still to this day, the song is quite different but still very much the same. The verses, are all about Lauren, that woman I dated longer than anyone, are essentially about picking up on cues that something isn’t right. That something needs, inspection. For example, in the first verse:
I can tell by the way you look tonight,
That somethin’ between us just isn’t right, isn’t right
You can tell by the way I’m walkin’ fast
That something’ between us just hasn’t passed, hasn’t passed
SOMETHING hasn’t passed, we don’t know where we are, but we know something isn’t right. That was Lauren and I sometimes. Not most of the time, but enough of the time that she’s now married to some other dude. And that’s cool. That’s cool. I get to play music and remain a kid, at least for now, so that’s cool too. In the chorus, consisting of a single line, I say:
I wanna know… If we… Are still a thing.
That’s it. Nice and simple. It’s nothing I ever asked, I think. But, it’s something I SHOULD have asked. It;s good to know where things are. And, at the very least, you’ll probably have a productive conversation about it all. All to Keep yourself healthy. Dude. The song, as a result of what I say above, is very longing. The singing makes it obvious that the singer really wants to know. Needs to know. Then, at the end of the track, and in some ways meant as a surprise to listeners who ACTUALLY make it through the WHOLE THING, I rap a poem, one I wrote well after the song, during recording. In general, I felt that the song needed a different ending, and so I added some art to my art, if only to make the thing MORE artistic. The poem, being somewhat unlike the song, is about My and Lauren’s relationship, from her perspective, written through my perceptive lens. As a result, it is what I THINK may have been. I was there. We grew up together. As such, I believe I’ve gotten the thing mostly right. It’s always funny when she asks me, “Is that song about me?” Another track, not on the album, called On The Steps, is THAT EXACTLY. It IS our break-up song. Moving on, we have Dream Sequence. I love this song. A personal favorite.
[INSERT:
LONG DIATRIBE FROM A MAN YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR anything FROM
HE’S SWEATING AND THE SUN IS HOT ON YOU TOO
YOU’RE LATE FOR A MEETING
BUT HE must SPEAK
OF PERSONAL MATTERS, HAVING NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU
]
And speaking of personal matters, there’s THIS creepy song. Here, I played on Clay Aiken’s Invisible, a similarly creepy tune. The concept is that there is this girl next door, in my case, a neighborhood tenant, living in the space above a friend of mine’s. Thinking on it now, I can remember playing Dream Sequence within her ear’s shot. Now, add to this Lauren’s awareness for I Wanna Knw, and you get that she, the tenant, may have actually known it was about her. LOL. I guess I don’t care NOW. Colorado Sucks For ME.
IMAGE OF AUTHOR MISERABLE AS FUCK IN COLORADO
EVERYONE ELSE HAVING FUN
BECAUSE: MONEY
In general, It takes money to avoid certain people. Trust me. Now, before I derail this otherwise linear detail set (i.e., this very piece) of writing, I’ll move on. Intentionally, the verses and choruses of the song are supposed to be hard to understand the difference between. However, by the end of the song, you know which part is the chorus. I’m not sure how I did this, but it’s what has happened. My favorite verse is the second:
I lay you down, in a field full of coins, no doctors for at least a hundred miles.
I lay you down, with Outkast in the background; I’d walk through mud to see you on the other side.
These lines are actually about Kelly. We grew up in a trailer park together, which had a field next to it that, for some reason, my dream-mind likes to have be full of buried coins. So, dream sequences keeping me up at night. The second line above is about that one time Kelly was on the other side of this mud pit. I could have walked around, like she did, but chose to go through the mud, if only for the line, I guess. Really, I didn’t use it until like 20+ years later, so all should be fine, too. Oh, and there’s a log here, too. THAT day.
Cha Ching. Cha Cha Ching. Cha … ….
VIDEO OF FAMILY DANCING IN THE SAME PANTS
FAMILY EQUALS 50+ PEOPLE
WHERE DOES ONE GET PANTS LIKE THESE ONES?
CHECKS, INTERNET; GIVES UP, ON LIFE.
The choruses, beginning as verses, consist of:
Sequence, away we go!
It’s time to have a Dream Sequence.
Away we go!
It’s time to have a Dream Sequence.
How catchy. Following the simplicity of this pop chorus, there’s the pre-chorus:
No innuendos, just curvatures and crescendos
I’m think’ ‘bout you through these painless windows
No innuendos, (just) entrances and exits
A spattering of hexes from my overly-demanding exes.
Talk about weird. And wordy. And high-level. I like it.
Without the pre-chorus, I now realize, we lose the creep angle altogether. Now that’s interesting. This song would be of the non-Clay variety had it not been for the pre-chorus. Wait, what? Now, before I discuss the chords, and the recording processes briefly, let me discuss the final track of the album. That would be Dr. Outtro. The intention of this track is to end the album like they did albums in the 90’s. Nineteen, not eighteen. Rap albums; – ; and things like the Lion King Soundtrack, had many spoken-word tracks, usually meant to add layers to the overall musical piece. Well, that’s what I did too. The point, in this track, is that people have been coming down with THE MUSICS, presumably from having listened to my album (and hopefully liking it), the solution of which, can only be, to listen to the album again. This makes sense. I have been there. I once listened to Cartel’s Chroma for like six months, in a row. Just ask Jamie, one of my other exes. She DOESN’T live in Texas, though. So the song doesn’t apply. No matter how straight.
In terms of trivia, for the final track, let me say that, and this is EXACTLY like Elegant Wood where I recorded all the vocals in a single lengthy take, a feat. So, imagine a guy, in a GIANT house in Colorado, recording a cartoon track, at something like 2 AM, doing multiple voices and laughing heinously. Yeah, that’s on there too. I play, in a vocal sense, both the doctor and the nurse. Either way, let me move on now to discussing the keys and chords of these songs. Not to mention, eventually, the intricacies of getting it all copywritten, recorded, and released. Maybe I’ll have to do a third piece for the recording and the release. Yeah, I’ll do that. So, chords. Then, PUBLISH.
ARTICLE ABOUT THE AUTHOR OF THIS PIECE PUBLISHING THIS PIECE
IMAGE READS: AUTHOR OF THIS PIECE PUBLISHING THIS PIECE
ALL IN MODES OF C MAJOR
Now, Let me speak briefly, now, of the chords of these songs. I love chords, almost as much as I love lyrics. As for writing, I guess I like them both, same. There is, you know, quite a lot of fun in staring down at a blank sheet of paper, filling it with words, and meaning, and then placing some chords over the words, mostly by randomness and by having grabbed your guitar. Writing from the piano is a lot of fun too. Very different sounds come out of the two, even when played by the SAME PERSON, and THAT’S BEAUTIFUL, man. Now, let me shut up and go on about the chords of the Alien Pop album. Once again, this is NOT a sales pitch. As long as you listen here, and maybe there too, I’ll be happy. This has always been the case.
“This is an open-and-shit case, sir.”
“You mean the monkey actually did this?”
“Yes, but no charges will be filed,
Because he’s a monkey.”
The album starts From On High, which, for the sake of this write-up, doesn’t have any chords. I added tones to the beat somewhat randomly, and cannot remember said tones right now, so, for the next piece on this topic, I’ll have to check the files for the tones. Either way, my sheets for this track consist of lyrics only, including the aforementioned addict-style chorus axed by-during the recording.
IMAGE OF A MAN CHOPPING A HARD DRIVE INTO
NON-FUNCTIONING HARD DRIVE PIECES
AND IT SUCKS
This moves us next to Elegant Wood. A fun track that was a lot of fun to write. As I played chords over the lyrics, I began to see that I was onto something. SOMETHING was good about this song, stood out sufficiently to make it a debut EP track, man. So, with the capo on the 5th fret, I set out to write. The verses yielded, ended up quite quite different from the style of the choruses, making for an almost warp feeling as you go from one to the other. In the end, The chords of the song come from the key of C Major, but, seeing as the capo is on the 5th, the song is actually in the key of F Major. So, when I play a I-vi-IV-V in the chorus, that infamous progression from songs like Walking in Memphis (Marc Cohn, 1991), Folding Chair (Regina Spektor, 2009), and Chain Gang (Sam Cooke, 1960), I am playing F-Dm-B-C. And, while I don’;t feel so inclined to give away ALL the chords, let me say that I spend the whole verse resolving a few light tensions, alternating between the tonic and some other non-tonic chords of the chorus. The F (AKA A# Major), as a result, becomes the life-force of the chorus. We had heard the same chords before, and they were resolved, but we hadn’t heard the F, and not in that progression either.
So far, this puts us in the key of C Major, shifted, to the north, by 5.
the NORTH POLE IS not ICE, MAN, IT’S TONES
Next comes Under Your Covers, an odd track to say the least. Here, and once again, I’m in a mode of C Major, shifted. This time the capo is on the 2nd fret. So, we’re playing in modes of D Major. I begin the song with a chord set meant to feel like a rocking boat. This was INTENTIONAL, MAN! This PROGRESSION is simple, so I’ll tell you what it is :;: It’s a vi-IV7-III-IV7. That’s it. Essentially, it’s an Am to F7 to E to F7, once again: shifted. Seeing as E is usually, ALWAYS, minor in the key of C, this means that I either borrowed a chord from another related key, or am using a Bebop Scale. I won’t dwell on this either way. Oh, and by the way, as I type this, I realize that I have taught myself ALL OF THIS! YOU can too. I think. When we get to the chorus, I alternate between the I and V of the key, meaning I spend the whole chorus in resolution. I did this so as to create a simple backdrop to my otherwise overtly emo manifestation of the lyrics. All parts of the song, including the bridge, have these forms. They are either a nauseating display of odd relative minor resolution or about the simplest 2-chord progression one can play. Take your pick. The song doesn’t know any better. It’s just a song, man.
Either way, I’ll move on to the next song, I Wanna Knw, now. Have any guesses about which key this song has its modes in too? Yup, that would be C Major, again. This time, there is no shift, so the song is actually in the key of C Major. Well, mostly. I lead the bridges on the relative minor, so those lines are technically a key change. From mode 1 to mode 6. By the way, it’s easier to think of keys like this, as shifted sets of tones and modes of the same. I won’t go into what a mode actually is, but suffice it to say that it, essentially, means swapping out your center (AKA TONIC) for some OTHER tone in the same key, while keeping your overall collection of tones the same. Relevantly, I once met a man, at an open mic, who could only play in E Major. Well, I am bit like that, including perhaps the circus too.
A TENSE SCENE BETWEEN TWO MEN
PLACING A BET
ON WHO WILL WIN WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE
SWEAT, EVERYWHERE
But yeah, tension. I Wanna Knw is a tense song. I wrote it that way. The tension in the chords expresses the longing, and the questioning, of the song. It makes us sad in ways that we didn’t know possible. This IS music, if you think about it. Each tone has an emotional effect on each person, so we can choose, if we wish, to view music as a manipulation of one’s emotional states, in a fundamentally wave-length harmonic kind of way. See my guitar as a gun. One having musical tones, each forming SOME relationship with your brain. Now that’s cool. And maybe also a bit CREEPY. Great, I made music sounding creepy. And we’re not even to Track 5. LOL. I won’t go giving away my entire progression for this one, as it creates a very specific sound I do not really want emulated. AKA, please don’t fuck up my song by using its progression in a Car Wash commercial.
SAD SONG PLAYING WITH WAY TOO MUCH AUTO-TUNE
AS CARS ARE BATHED
AND IT _SUCKS_
That’s CAPS AND _CAPS_, so REALLY FREAKING _HUGE_
Either way, the song plays heavily on tense versions of the I-iii-vi-iii I-iii-vi-vi chord set. From this, you could essentially play a bland version of the song. As for resolution, that would be assisted by the relative minor tonic chord, which coincidentally DOES NOT receive any tension in its structure. Overall, Our tonic is still C Major, in the verses and choruses, but some other chord is assisting in the resolution, back to said C. How cool. The bridge of the song ends up switching, as a result, to this vi (AKA the key of A Minor). Here, I increase the tension of a few of the chords and even add an Fm, which is VERY ODD for a song in C Major, its modes too. What am I borrowing from there? Let me think about it? Which key is close to C Major AND contains an Fm? Hmm. Let me think about it. MOVING ON. I COULDN’T THINK, ABOUT IT.
EITHER WAYS
INSERT LENGTHY BREAK
‘ING SOUND
Now, it’s a totally new day. I started writing this like a week ago. Still, I’ve just read a few paragraphs and think it’s nice. So. So, I’ll continue on with my EP, Alien Pop, about how virtually all of its songs are in SOME mode of C Major. This gives the overall work a collective feeling that a bunch of disparate keys couldn’t give it. It giveth. And it WAS cool. From the woods, too and even. Maybe even TOO EVEN. Imagine putting down every damn thought, and some people find it [:] INTERESTING. Sandra, the very same that “arted” the album’s cover, has just texted to let me know how nice this blog reads, how it’s like someone’s life story, a book even, unfolding. My heart is warm.
Sandra, meeting Ryan.
Sandra, looks like Ryan.
Sandra, IS LIKE Ryan.
Maybe not so TO WIT, there’s this bird here in the woods that calls obnoxious all night. This stupid. Fuckin’. Bird. Has some nerve, to keep me up like this. In HIS habitat, of all. Maybe hers, too? But, please don’t. Bother me above this. Well, now, where was I? Oh yeah, I had just described I Wanna Knw, the only R&B track of the album. I had a lot of fun making this one. Not so much fun trying to make the other, largely acoustic version to work. Something that plays in the streets doesn’t always play in the recording space. The BOOTH. This is like a law, man. A dream. Sequence, away we go!
So, yeah, Track 5 of the album, my personal favorite song, of those all, on the record. There’s something COOL, to how catchy and careful the whole thing is. Dangle. I probably thought of the name, Dream Sequence, subconsciously by looking at the game Sequence on my film stand. As with ALL of the other songs so far, this one is in a shifted mode of C Major. This TIME, the shift is 6, and so the song is in the key of F# Major. Its primary riff, the one RUNNING throughout most of the song’ is a I-iii-vi-IV. For CERTAIN parts of the song, namely the chorus and the pre-chorus, a I-V-IV-vi is used. Of course, some of these chords are inverted and some are extended (i.e., 7th). Still, these are ultimately the tones of the song. Intentionally, I set up the chorus to SOUND like a verse when the song starts. In other worders, the chorus begins as a verse, at the very beginning of the song. Then, by the end, or at some point in between, the chorus-non-chorus becomes THE chorus. It also serves as the outro to the song, which is where I REALLY let my falsetto go nuts, even when playing live. I’m not sure WHICH notes the falsetto consists of, but I think it’s approaching the 6-7th octave, something like C in the 6th or 7th octave. Seeing as I can also sing VERY low notes, this places my range somewhere between 6 or 7 octaves. In general, I can “SING” the 0th octave, if needed. And, as for needed, I’m still trying to figure out where to use that stuff.
MAN, GLOATING
IN FRONT OF, ENTIRE CLASS
OF LITTLE KIDS, WHO DON’T CARE
But, don’t let me start gloating. I don’t want to do that. I mean, things LIKE being able to call the pitch of a dog bark in a neighborhood as one rides by quickly on a bike has had some of my students offended, for some reason. I (in ALL CAPS) has been called insensitive and even mean. And, all for NOT having much in the way of embarrassment. Read as: Ember Ass Men. LOL.
Either way, I’m MOVING, on.
The final track of the album goes by the title of Dr. Outtro, which happens to be ALSO the PRIMARY DOCTOR’S name, in the skit, based, obviously, on the fact that the track ALSO happens to be, an outro to the album. As mentioned in the liners, THANK YOU Sandra, the track is meant to close the album in the style of those rap albums of the 90’s that TENDED to contain things similar, to this. Some of them, way too much so. For example, some of that NO LIMIT SOLDIER stuff. While awesome at that time, it now appears littered, in some cases, by superfluous tracks. You ain’t gotta embellish to kick it, man. And, Once again, LOL. B-Dubs this brings up a memory. My first actual written lyric. It was a rap song, I had just listened to the Sugar Hill Gang, and so it was based on THAT beat. It began with:
Check it, wreck it, let’s begin.
I’m like a full circumcision, take off all your skin.
And this is something a CHILD-MAN of 14 was writing. Like I said, I’m weird.
IMAGE OF SCIENTIST
ACADEMIC POSTER READS:
MAN CHILD DOES NOT EQUAL CHILD MAN
But. Dr. Outtro. Seeing as this is not something that I had taken out paper to write down ahead of time, LIKE THE SONGS, I can’t really talk about pre-production keys and things like that, like I have for the other tracks. As such, I think this long ass venture has concluded. Goodness, how many pages? What happened to my limit of, what was it, 6-8 pages? Yeah, right.
So, in recap, this post has been about the making of Alien Pop, my first major musical work of musical art (outside of all the others). I have covered UP TO the keys and chords, but also covered the lyrics, as well as some of the first artists who come to my mind when I think of good lyrics. I mean, not every band has good lyrics. Some are shit. Some are only OK. Others don’t make any sense. Dude, Gavin, it VERY much matters how you throw a boomerang. Perhaps you should give it a try? Shots fired. Why am I exchanging FIGHTING WORDS with Gavin Degraw. What a strange target. Oh no, there’s that phrase. Fancy Dumpster. Fancy Dumpster. Get Me Out of Here!
Part, and I can’t believe I’m writing this, 14 SHOULD concern the rest of the making of Alien Pop. This would mean everything from – recording to finish. The lyrics are here, the chords and keys too. As such, you could play along? And, if it’s good, you could send it to me? I’m not sure what I’d do with an altered version of my (copywritten) songs, but it COULD be COOL. As for the others, I’ll have to think on that. Parts 11 through 15. So much to think about.
As always.
From bugs, with love.
PS – THAT list .:. .;. .:. .;. / .:. .;. .:. .;. / .:. .;. .:. .;.
1. Northstar
2. Bright Eyes
3. Paul Simon
4. Eminem
5. Panic At The Disco
6. Fall Out Boy
7. David Bowie
8. The Beatles
9. Bob Dylan
10. Say Anything
Feel free to leave your own top recalls! I’d love to think more about this. Also, go listen to Alien Pop. I am proud of it. And-also please.
Double PS — Here are some links:
https://www.sandralisidesign.com
https://minutestomidnight.co.uk
https://rythur.bandcamp.com/album/alien-pop
Triples is Best — The Album:
Statistical Consulting from analytllc 
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