DAY ONE-HUNDRED AND FORTY-NINE
Hello there.
This song is short. It consists of:
1. A few seconds from a record called Great Ghost Stories from Troll Records. This particular bit comes from “The Mysterious Shipwreck” narrated by Ralph Bell. I found it at a thrift store, and I used it at a live show as well. It’s become very useful.
2. An exercise of a collaboration between me and the poetry of T.S. Eliot (I am using The Centenary Edition). I would write a line then look up the next within my T.S. Eliot book that I felt fit, write another line myself (or if I was really stuck took a word from another line of his) back and forth, then, for the last of the four lines, I would find a line of Eliot’s that rhymed with the last word of the second line and had to use it completely. I also had to use the first line I read, I couldn’t look for another one forcing me to fit it into the melody. (creating an A/B/C/B rhyme scheme – is that right?).
I tried several different samples from this record, though I haven’t been through the whole thing. This was the one that stood out the most to me at the moment. I gave myself a time limit: I had to finish (from recording sample to the last apple-S) by the time the battery on my dumb computer dies (which isn’t very long… maybe 45 minutes). I decided to use an effect on the vocals and purposely widened the vibrato to make it feel more unstable and wiry…
In an attempt to avoid a fade-out ending I just cut it where I thought it might best serve it… it’s a little ineffective, but good enough for the time limit set.
The Edible House
Interesting method producing mysterious piece that somehow keeps the ship afloat.
As Joanna Newsom says: ‘This is not my tune, but it’s mine to use’.