Tag: Sunday Original Song Challenge

Sunday Original Song Challenge

It was written yesterday in one shot. Not expecting to write on this topic, I was writing words on something else – a tragically sad experience – but it wasn’t coming. Then I wrote the first line; Nothing I can do to make things better, (that I later changed to Nothing is feeling much better) and the rest of the lyrics just rolled out.

Fellow Man D.Brint, May 8/21

Nothing is feeling much better, with my back against the wall

Can’t help but feel the pressure, question the sense of right and wrong

One side says we must do more, others say to do less

Some ask what’s it all for, sometimes I agree I must confess

Does anyone ever have the answers

Is someone drawing up a better plan

Is humanity really making advances

For the good of the fellow man

Conflict always follows us, like a dog snapping at our heels

Like a ride we can’t get of off, caught in the spokes of a spinning wheel

And the sun still rises, the moon shines on the sea

They watch over our crisis, impartial to you and me

There’s trouble in the east, and in the west, fights in the south, the north is melting

We’ve seen the powerful undressed, we’ve joined the throngs of protest marching

And it’s round and round day after day, corruption sits in the power seat

Deaf to why it has to be that way, dumb and blind with greed and conceit

Does anybody ever have the answers

Is someone drawing up a master plan

Is humanity really making advances

For the good of the fellow man

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Sunday Original Song Challenge

Ok, two days late.

Inspired by Canadian Artist Emily Carr. I stared writing this while I was away this week and finished it last night at midnight; recorded it this morning, which is why I sound like a wrung rag. Oh, and May the 4th be with you 🙂

EMILY

D.Brint, May 4

I saw your ghost through the trees, you were walking through the garden, the place you loved

Your arms were full of white lilies, your voice like the coo of a dove.

You came on the bite of a winter storm, a tempest in your eyes, a heart untamed

From where the wild things are born, that hands of nature ordained

You’re not so small in this world at all, Emily

The western forest deep and ethereal set fire to your soul, the light that guides you

Your own sacred cathedral, your passion, your truth

You’re not so small in this world at all, Emily

When you felt your world so hostile you took shelter under eagles wings

Your eyrie high as a steeple, safe in the solace it brings

You’re not so small in this world at all, Emily

You walk alone in your forest home, Emily

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Sunday Original Song Challenge

This song barely made the Sunday deadline! I wrote half of the lyrics yesterday afternoon and the rest this morning and put the final music to it this afternoon. Then it takes me several, and I mean several takes to get the recording down. All week I couldn’t seem to find reflective time to work on lyrics, waiting for nudges or cues to come to my attention. But by Saturday I made the time, made space, for something to come, whatever it would be. I started just writing on an idea, whatever words came up, free association, then scraped what I had. Then I played a chord progression – C/F/G and hummed hoping to coax out some words, and what came out was carry them down. It immediately felt like coal mining, which is what my city and my little island is steeped in. Strange that that theme was not on my radar at all initially, but came out regardless. One of the fascinations I have with Writing; who’s doing the writing or am I being written? So off I went with writing the rest of the song.

So it seems fitting to include a link to my short story “Pocket Watch” about the story of Protection Islands coal mining tragedy.

Carry Them Down D.Brint April 25/21

Carry them down, deep down in the ground

Into that long dark hollow

When the work is done they’ll rise and then

Return again on the morrow

Living by the lamp the air cold and damp

Stooping low to work that seam

They’ve come from so far to be where they are

Digging down their roots for a dream

Carry them down deep down in the ground

Into that long dark hollow

When the work is done they’ll rise and then

Return again on the morrow

Heeding the call there was work for them all

There was land and steady pay

Earned by a hard run both father and son

Clawing Dunsmuir coal from the clay

Carry them down deep down in the ground

Into that long dark hollow

When the work is done they’ll rise and then

Return again on the morrow

Like a mole in that deep dark hole

Swallowed into the belly of a snake

Each man devoured by long tunnels and hours

A cruel barter that seals their fate

Carry them down, deep down in the ground

Into that long black hollow

There they’ll stay the rest of days

They’ll not again come on the morrow.

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Sunday original Song Challenge

This came out as a rather long song, over 4 minutes of your life you won’t get back if you listen to it. Thank you for your time if you do. It started off with an offhand thought of the phrase, days like these, and went from there. Yes, I did have soooo many great concerts lined up for the summer and into the fall….

Days Like Those D. Brint, April 17/21

I was hanging out in cafe’s, I was out shopping for shoes

There was a bustle out on main street, and family BBQ’s

I was planning my vacation, I was booking my hotel

I was hugging all my friends up until

Days like those became days like these

Got to go with the flow, but we’re on our knees, with days like these

I had tickets to my favourite concerts, I was going to the movies

I was meeting friends for lunch, and going out for sushi

We gathered around the table, we gathered in small rooms

We shook hands with total strangers whose hands weren’t so well groomed

Days like those…

Last year I saw whole faces when I went to the grocery store

Saw their smiles heard their voices as they came and went through the doors

My friend just out of surgery, I sat at his bedside

Nurses weren’t so tired then, not so much anyway

Days like those…

These days became a waiting game, looking for ways to bide our time

Learned a language, reno’d the kitchen

Took up macrame and made a batch of wine

Days like those…

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Sunday Original Song Challenge

Here is week 5 in the challenge. This song comes out of what I think everyone has gone or is going through. Words are many things, but the hardest ones are ones left unspoken.

Words D.Brint, April 10, 2021

Words are fickle things, the easy way they fall from our lips

And words can be heavy things, smooth and dark as a stone on the tongue

Words are wasted things, tossed like pennies in a shallow pool

Or locked down deep inside, till the last breath from our lungs

Words can come too late, thinking we have the time

To voice the things that’s in our hearts

To say the things we meant to say

And I am here, but you’re not here to hear the words I have for you

They’re grounded like wounded bird

Whose colours have turned to grey

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Sunday Original Song Challenge

I believe this 4th song in my challenge constitutes as a Ditty, in that it’s short, simple (and I think, a little cute). The inspiration for it came when my husband was reading inscriptions from his parent’s wedding guest book from 1948 the other day. Reg, just home from WW2, and Florence, a young accomplished bagpiper, were both born and raised and living in Parry Sound Ontario, where they remained after marrying, raised their children, and died in old age. Some of the entries in the guest book, I’m yours until butter flies, and, Yours until the kitchen sinks, written by their friends piqued my sweetness bone and I thought, why not a song with those play on words? So I did.

I’m Yours D.Brint April 4, 2021

The moment my eyes fell upon your face

Is the moment I knew my heart had found its place

My world stopped the day you took my hand

Birds sang, flowers bloomed, there was peace upon the land

I’m yours till butter flies, until the bed springs

Till thunder storms and Niagara falls

Until tulips kiss and the kitchen sinks

When hot dogs bark and the barn dances

As the years gather and the road behind us long

There’ll be no doubt in our hearts it’s here where we belong

I wouldn’t change a thing in this life I have with you

And I thank my stars it’s me you took a shine to

I’m yours till butter flies, until the bed springs

Till thunder storms and Niagara falls

Until tulips kiss and the kitchen sinks

Till hot dogs bark and the barn dances

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Sunday Original Song Challenge

A childhood event was the inspiration here. The idea for this song was initially different than what actually came out when I began writing, and it came in one day. Interesting how the writing process works, like the of writing a story that seems to take on a life of its own, sometimes it dictates what will be written despite your intention. I’m including the lyrics under the videos now, thanks to a suggestion from a follower.

Susan

Susan was new to the neighbourhood, we walked to school

Picking oranges from a grove marked for demolition

She had no mother, lived with her dad,

Grade five, California, 1967

He was never home until the end of the day

But Susan had her own key to the front door

And she wasn’t allowed to play down the street

I guess it was his way to see her safe and secure

I’d go to her house most day’s after school

We’d eat captain crunch and watch national velvet

Or turn the radio up loud and make up crazy dances

Doing our best to imitate Elvis

I remember a pool table stood where a dining table should be

And stacks of country albums in rows on the floor

I remember her dad and his short, black, shiny hair

And the cans of beer he bought from the corner liquor store

We started out as friends but for reasons I didn’t understand

She became cruel and condescending

I became the target of her hurtful remarks

By the time the school year was ending

By summertime a white moving van parked in front of her house on the road

And I saw men carry out the pool table, and boxes of everything they owned

I could see Susan in the passenger seat of the station wagon

Her dad beside her at the wheel

She never looked or waved at me standing, stared straight ahead

never let on how she feels about

Leaving another home, leaving another town,

leaving another school, leaving another friend

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