#17: Almost, Almost

(song, lyrics, audio fragments)

Fresco by Paolo Uccello (Chiostro Verde, Santa Maria Novella, Florence)

I have lots of melodies and chord progressions in need of lyrics. Some of them deserve better than the voice memo bardo I’ve consigned them to. So today I’m letting a few out. All are real-time wanderings through melody and chords. The usual caveats… Mistakes were made. Some vocal warbling occurs. Extra measures appear as I try to remember the next move. The recording quality is not great. In most cases I haven’t yet made any decisions about form. And they don’t have lyrics!

Part of me is embarrassed to be sharing this stuff. I do so, first of all, because fuck that and secondly because these fragments capture (in a way I suspect no “presentation grade” studio record can) something essential about my sensibilities, intuitions, and the way I write songs. Finally, as I said in a post back in April, just raising them out of the digital muck brings them one step closer to being something. Now I can say that these are things I’m working on.

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Fragment 1: Hymn

This one feels very close to springing some words. It might be about my cat.

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Fragment 2: The Adaptor

This came about by accident while tinkering with a new toy, the Chase Bliss Blooper.

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Fragment 3: Other Blues

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Song: Almost, Almost

If the language of this one sounds a bit odd it’s because most of it was dreamed. I almost never dream songs. If I do, they dissipate before I can capture them. I was lucky to snag this one, with its weird preponderance of latinate words: illuminates, circulate, uncooperative, intervene, multitude, exert, evidence, imminent. All we’re floating around in the dream cathedral.

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Almost, Almost

I had that dream again
an open space
perhaps an airport terminal
it's hard to say
cathedral light illuminates
we circulate
amid an uncooperative crowd

and for a time it seems as if
we'll finally meet
just like our eyes do once or twice
did you smile at me?
it's then the others intervene
cruel multitude exerts its force
and we must recede

	almost, almost
	the lover's cry

and there you are front of me
(dreams are that way
they are their own self-evidence
we just obey)
surely a kiss is imminent
this curse will break
instead this room, the light, and the day

	almost, almost
	the lover's cry
	almost almost
	all the lovers cry