Steve Low

Steve Low

By Steve Low
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Steve Low episodes

  • International Nationality 2025
    The first version of this in 2005 was a reaction to nationalism as exhibited via plane hijackings. This time the US border politics triggered a rewrite with a different chord structure and words. Just acoustic guitar and bass: back to basics!
    INTERNATIONAL NATIONALITY 2025
    I woke up to face the day Acapulco Hilton
    I knew I had to catch a train to the USA
    I should be excited but I know I’m not
    I’m feeling all the fears that America’s got
    There are borders and a national guard
    There are people who are living so hard
    I think it’s time to make us all the same
    An international nationality
    Out of the xray beam to the border gate
    Who’s got a false passport are they here today?
    I’m looking around for a sweaty brow
    Has the guard gotta grudge and a sacred cow?
    Let’s get something underway
    Take away the borders of today
    I think it’s time to make us all the same
    An international nationality
    Free them . . . and you’ll be halfway human
    The children . . . let them be in arms tomorrow
    I’m looking out through the glass at the other’s world
    Seeing them through the fence where they’re all being held
    Who’s that getting up and walking around
    Are we just gonna leave without making a sound?
    4 min
  • Yesterdays People
    I was struck by an article in the Guardian 10 years ago about a woman who used to hang out and work with the Rolling Stones in the 60s and the article was about adapting to old age while having nostalgia for such a potent time in her life. For this recording I had to change one word - 70 to 80. Musically it needed to be rhythmic but melancholic: something you got from major and minor seventh songs in the mid 70s as disco kicked in
    YESTERDAY’S PEOPLE
    Yesterday’s people used to party, party, party
    Yesterday’s people were so cool so cool so cool
    There was a girl her skin so fresh and fine
    There was a guy as smooth as a dark red wine
    They were out there in a happening era
    Face to face so close and nearer
    Photogenic and oh so bold
    But that generation has all grown old
    In 69 it was crazy zany time
    In London town all that music going down
    Young people travelling - free love happening
    Beautiful people philosophizing
    Mary Jane twilight in the Mediterranean
    That generation they’ve all grown old
    If you’re talking to an 80 year old guy
    Remember he - was Mr cool way back in time
    Try to imagine the face much younger
    The yearning soul hormonal hunger
    Suite Judy blue eyes young people dancing
    That generation they’ve all grown old
    4 min
  • Ms Rocket Launcher
    A complete re-recording in the key played live. It was one of those recordings that sounded really messy. Dropping the fader on the acoustic guitar I'd started the whole thing off with revealed a different direction highlighting case and drums. It's about females who stand up for the community against arrogance and male chauvinism and I see them in my work environment - this song is about them..
    Miss Rocket Launcher
    Hey hey you this Joan of Arc - Miss Rocket Launcher
    Love you sending into space – those flying saucers
    Your eyes they dart and sense corrosion
    You’re leaning forward in silky motion
    You know who is fit to govern
    For those who aren’t they get concussion
    Your elbows dent the seats of power
    Your rocket roars it’s getting louder
    Hey hey you Sister of Mercy – Miss Rocket Launcher
    Love it that they’re on your mind – the poor and poorer
    When you sense their exploitation
    Your voice it cracks and lips are brazen
    I’d hate to be your target right then
    A volley gone to crack their heads
    We’re hungry like Cohen’s Partisan
    We’ll force ‘em to the stones and hear the doors slam
    Room dust scatters as your strident voice rises
    Tables go silent as you render the kaisers
    Hey hey you this Mother Theresa – Miss Rocket Launcher
    Can feel the warmth inside of you – and getting warmer
    When they wallow in their greed
    You let one go and make em all flee
    I’m feeling for the hem of your gown
    The reverent touch the best to be found
    I know that you will win in the end
    And sharing it with you – what a send
    4 min
  • Appearance Medicine
    A twist on the 'Appearance Medicine' phrase.
    APPEARANCE MEDICINE
    Tripping round some corridors
    Nothing but neon lights
    Floor polish and hidden voices
    There you are before my eyes
    It’s appearance medicine
    Like a hormone injects in a vein
    It’s appearance medicine
    A face that lights a flame
    S O B and tachy heart when lightning seeds a body start
    That jumps a gate to permeate my actual need
    For you with me - today
    This hospital’s a restaurant
    Medicine is the menu
    God’s own surgeon shaped the face
    That walks me to the moon
    It’s appearance medicine . . .
    Ah-huh Ah Huh da da da da da da da da
    It’s appearance medicine
    It’s appearance medicine
    Everyday it’s much the same
    Going on that ward round
    Floor polish and hidden voices
    Soon my heart it’s on the pound
    4 min
  • Decarbonising Aviation
    New start after finishing SC and Spotify Album - Eccentricity so Beautiful.
    This title jumped off a page and lately in the live act we've been doing some 80s songs: I think that influenced the approach here.
    Decarbonizing Aviation
    Decarbonizing Aviation
    It’s a new concsiousness
    Vapor trails gone West
    Sometimes you got to make a change
    To keep love on forever’s path
    Your shaking trees are exhausting me
    Better a sundown heart to heart
    Decarbonizing Aviation – night swimming and seeing it spark
    Decarbonizing Aviation – going steady yeah not too fast
    Glaciers and shrinking
    Habitats and mourning
    Can we glide the plane back home
    Gotta give up on bad bad stuff
    Seven days of denial nights
    I think we know that enough’s enough
    3 min
  • 33 RPM Nirvana
    Written 11 years ago: recalls the days when music was vinyl only and a magical retreat from disabling matters of the heart
    33 RPM NIRVANA
    Flattened faces pressed up against the glass
    It’s well known no-one needs to ask
    People talking ‘bout how I’m feeling
    If they were me yes they’d be reeling
    They’d need time and recuperation
    But at night I take up station
    Hanging around in 33 RPM Nirvana
    Getting away to 33 RPM Nirvana
    She’s a stranger that’s her right to choose
    Who can blame her she don’t like old news
    You might say she’s one go getter
    And why did she not treat me better
    I admit I loved her deeply
    But right now I’m kind of sleepy
    Hanging around in 33 RPM Nirvana
    Getting away in 33 RPM Nirvana
    I’m pulling the curtains and switching it on
    Watching the tone arm lower onto my black vinyl
    Drifting away now the music is my river
    Not analyzing I’m seeking separation
    Through the mists of time I wander
    What is life I’m bound to ponder
    Gonna get to shrug my shoulders
    Moving on and getting bolder
    Hanging around in 33 RPM Nirvana
    Getting away in 33 RPM Nirvana
    4 min
  • Love Our Together Life
    Wrote the title phrase on a birthday card and immediately thought that's a 'song title'. The first take of the vocal was a loose ramble but I just left it in - it seemed to fit.
    Love Our Together Life
    That cliché thick and thin about loving all the time
    We’re not vascillating over always gotta rhyme
    Doubling up in laughter keeps an even keel
    And getting to a sweet spot finally it’s real
    We drove out to the cliff and back
    Now it’s all about giving back
    It’s life upon a road with little jobs to do
    And a race across the sand to share the view
    It’s pouring out the drinks as the sun dips down
    And talking ‘bout the people who we see around
    Love our together life
    Love our together life
    Back in days of war it was tight in the lip
    And the putting up of walls with a face half lit
    Cause expectations could never be met
    And it takes a lot of years to wind it back to less
    Yeah giving up on hurt and feeling how it was
    In the years embryonic burning hot
    And the psyche bathed in the songs of the time
    But transplanting now to a wiser kind of rhyme
    4 min
  • Greatest Hits
    GREATEST HITS
    I’m blowin’ notes streetside in a horn section
    Blown garbage and coppered boots all gone tangling.
    You’re Bixby’s Bridge above Kerouac’s canyon.
    Way above the ruts in your trending fashion
    You’ve been playin’ me your greatest hits.
    But I need from you something ordinary (Like)
    Falling vacant down a slip
    What capture’s me is the fragmentary - humanity
    You’re all coiff n pressed jeans uber-reaching
    Gripping on to a scene and about it beseeching
    You’re jetting over Miller’s Big Sur resident shack
    History is nothing but a scratch on your back
    You’ve been playin’ me your greatest hits. . .
    But I need from you something ordinary (Like)
    A eureka moment guilt trip
    What capture’s me is the fragmentary – humanity
    What was I just a birthright the right side of the tracks
    But egalitarian ideas caught you in a trap
    Trying to show a social conscience don’t come naturally
    Such a handbrake on life’s beckoning verdant tapestry
    You’ve been playin’ me your greatest hits. . .
    You’ve been playin’ me your greatest hits. . .
    4 min
  • ECCENTRICITY SO BEAUTIFUL
    I was fortunate to attend the International Health Institute conference in London last month and there were sessions run by a woman so passionate and committed to change to improve the delivery of healthcare to the masses and I thought her partner would be so proud . . .
    Eccentricity so Beautiful
    While life and limb can shatter
    It’s only hearts that matter - In our world - Darlin’ girl
    You’re out there proselytizing.
    And it’s so mesmerising - that’s your way – an ordinary day
    Something about you rising up
    Is cutting through my filling heart - it’s only love
    On your soap box agent change
    With so much to de-arrange - with a blast
    Eccentricity so Beautiful (that’s you girl -it’s your world)
    Those rank iconoclasts
    Bathe in their master class - impervious - in Ivory towers
    Talk as if they’ve got the plan
    Line up and shake their hands - feel the grip - the hand of power
    You’re raisin’ it from ground up
    Changing at the speed of trust – with such feel
    Building leaders everywhere
    Co-produce no limit skies – that’s our dream
    Eccentricity so Beautiful (that’s you girl -it’s your world)
    Exhausted but so energized - Trying to catch you in the eye - Need you close.
    I call you aphrodisiac - Hotel room take care of that –
    On that note
    4 min
  • Between Abstraction and Representation
    Harmony laden lyrical acoustic rhythmic soul
    Between Abstraction and Representation
    You don’t know which way to stand
    Is the light favorable?
    Or is black now passe
    I guess it’s all debatable
    I’m trailing in your scent
    You’re LA then New York
    Ghosting like the Zephyr Train
    Making sure you walk the walk
    You’re caught there in between abstraction and representation
    They watch you in between abstraction and representation
    Though you deny you seek to impress
    It’s other women for whom you get dressed
    In and out of the closet you float
    Strapping and weave – girdle and hose
    Delaunay or Cassatt?
    Hey honey bring it all back
    Home . . .
    I could be jealously mad
    Seeing all that attention you grab
    But bedroom’s night is painting your curves
    And only I will get to observe
    5 min

About Steve Low

From the publisher's feed

Playing live and writing & recording in Nelson New Zealand - began recording in 2004 once technology was available to make CDs using industry standard equipment at home. Radio airplay on Fresh FM…