Talking Is Dead

On this infrequent episode...

Candice goes all 70s with Barbra Amesbury's pop-laced Virginia (Touch Me Like You Do).

Anthony decides to follow suit from the same era with the Canadian west-coast soul-tinged Wildflower by Skylark.

I've used the word "gollamalloo" as a user name for emails and online handles for years now. This song is where that word comes from.

The song is basically an amalgam of weird and wacky events that occurred during parties I'd been to when I was younger. There are many nonsense words in here denoting the incomprehensible rambling of many of my fellows who were under the influence, or, in some cases, me being under the influence and perhaps ascribing such meaninglessness to what may have been cogent utterances.

Gollamalloo!

the intoxicant was passed effervescent to the last
dropped a notch or two along the evolutionary scale
wormwood stole my cerebellum hid it in a shell
and stopped the outbound Reason setting sail

heart palpitating 13/8 as broadloom undertook a state
of liquefied marshmallow soup a hearty shade of pink
I quickly cried “Gollamalloo!” and paddled in vain with my shoe
but directionless I tired and promptly came the sink

Randy took a hard-boiled egg and held it to his nose
said “I’m the king of all the earth” and smeared it on his clothes
Donna took out her left breast and cupped it with a Jell-O mold
while Dave howled Tarzan calls and beat his chest

cryonic in its state the heavy albatross Grape Ape
hangs in heat transference peeling from the fabric on my chest
I hit the archetypal ground when there barked a blaring sound
and ingenue turned seismic goo encompassing the rest

crass opulence thought Eye covered the earth in plastic guise
to preserve it for the future wailing wake of dense Ragu
intelligence in this loose form uncovered “whence you are forewarned”
embroidered on a pillowcase across the sofa blue

Suzie took her lipstick out wrote epithets on Bill
collapsed after the airplane spins had made him rather ill
Rick mooned the room and tripped up on his jeans into the rug
Cin sat glass-eyed drooling playing with the plug

zen tropi magoo snore de yem farg
cola ma sigh fyris enterb
cheka terwank semina whomina snarf

gladiola moon time to cut the grass too soon
incandescent tune overwrought the 4th of June
sucked into the great monsoon…

prostrate porcelain penitence performed the unformed recitence
rejected fusili non grata adopt cheerio packs
calm countenance found my embrace entwined to cool my face
and forced remission from the aftershock attack

Karen stood up quietly said “Anth, I think I’m dying"
dropped to her knees and crying said “goodbye"
her face went pale and she collapsed in the middle of the room
Eye petrified, she smiled, jumped up shouting "Gollamalloo!"

zen tropi magoo snore de yem farg
cola ma sigh fyris enterb
cheka terwank semina whomina snarf

A song about aliens and secret military bases... yep, that's about it for this one. Oh... includes a Quincy reference!

51 Pick Up

Acres upon acres of the arid desert land.
The dryer of the driest may tag Ken more than the sand.
The buzzard’s barbs so overhead it cawed its mortal caw.
The rattlesnake crept from the rock to see what he had saw.

That ball of fire burning unheeded by the clouds.
The wind whipped up the silence and banged the drums aloud.
My trail of disappearing steps approached me ever nearer
And through a sheet of burning grains the painted sign was clearer.

Come on in, roll on up to Area 51.
A place of wonder. Full of sci-fi fun.
The chariots of the gods on funky helicopter pads.
A subsidized Shambala in the sun.

Checked my bandana at the gate and took a sticky name tag.
“Hello, my name is Alejandro du Magee",
And my magic carpet gave it all searching for Brigadoon.
I should’ve made that left at Albuquerque.

Come on in, roll on up to Area 51.
A place of wonder.  Full of sci-fi fun.
Where Quincy cuts Venusian corpse on tape for pay TV.
A subsidized Shambala in the sun.

I took a walk down through the Time Tunnel and the sparks flew ‘round my head.
I had a holodeck fantasy and I left her a little dead.
Danger! Danger! will rob insomniacs of restful sleep,
‘Cause while I thought the earth stood still it was shuffling its feet.

10 000 feet below   the pod began to glow
and made a humming sound and seismatized the ground

I can see without an eye.

Space is deep is black is creeping.
Faces keep his lack of sleep erased.
Can soma get him home?
Get him out of my head!

This song was a bit strange from the moment the music and lyrics came together. I normally write lyrics before music and the lyrics for this one are really depressing. The music, however, is rather upbeat. Don't remember if there was motivation for this intentionally or not. 

The song starts with a brief notice of a man committing suicide by hanging off the 59th Street Bridge (not feeling groovy). The remainder of the song talks about the minute which follows from the people who witness the event and how they deal with what they have witnessed.

60 seconds on 59th

Hector tests his slip knot on crossbeam 17
on the darker side of the 59th Street Bridge
Esmerelda Jones heads home in her ’83 Corrolla
Oblivious to the crosshairs on her hood

Funky Phil assumed a groovy staggered lamppost slalom
and spied a shadow perched akimbo on the iron tightrope
Slipping on the cobblestones a headlight bore down on him
Banshee tires scream to silence inches from his head

Hector will you take a flying leap through open air
Square yourself for impact as you wonder how to fly
Cry a sullen lullaby as flurries still the night
Frightened take a second breath while hair stands on your neck

Hold your eyes high happy people, don’t look down
‘cause a foul wind’s making troubled waters churn below
Colder skies are building up the mother of all storms
and I think that all our hopes are gonna drown

Charlie Graham from Birmingham torched the garbage can
and huddled shivering over tubed inferno
Heard the rubber squeal and the metal monster groaning
then someone slipping off the rail and falling into nothing.

Esmerelda held her breath while helping Phil erect
whereupon their awestruck gaze caught Hector tumble over
A wail rose from behind as Charlie overtook them
collapsing at the top of the human pendulum

Hold your eyes high happy people, don’t look down
‘cause a foul wind’s making troubled waters churn below
Colder skies are building up the mother of all storms
and I think that all our hopes are gonna drown

Footpatrolman Dan O’Shea saw the defeated silhouette
from the frozen headlights on the other side
Waxed in indecision watched the stark tableau unfold
as though he’d no position to intrude

Head over heels the horizon in tow
With the city lights spinning in ostinato
Illumination in streaked oscillation
Amorphus glow starts to slow down

Hector swayed with the melting wind and froze a final scene
The concrete tumblers locked within his sight
Esmerelda Jones withdrew into safe warm place
and never crossed the bridge again at night

Hold your eyes high happy people, don’t look down
‘cause a foul wind’s making troubled waters churn below
Colder skies are building up the mother of all storms
and I think that all our hopes are gonna drown

When stuck one night for a song topic, I reached out onto the early interwebs (this was the 90s after all) and asked a friend for an idea. Their response was "fashion". The following was written from that spark.

Journey to the Bottom of the Dresser

A jury of my peers strung a wire through my neck
and hung me from the gallow’s pole behind the death camp’s folding door.
The musty smell pervaded through my skin and overwhelmed
all senses left remaining, slowly fading, slipped down to the floor.

Ostensibly motionless dust gathers high on my remains
enshrined beneath the refuse.  I must wait an endless day
Denied the rite and ritual prescribed to those that left me here.
I hearken to nostalgic times in purple haze - the glory years.

I am a cotton blend, ¾ sleeved, technicolour concert shirt.
My arms are white, my torso black, with tour dates on the back.
I’ve smelled like weed for fifteen years
occassionally obscured by beer
and waiting for the Judas Priest reunion.

Pancaked between the legions of the underused and frayed,
I shuffle out a well-worn rhythm long past over-played.
Left for dead but for that one cold October night
When the air tore in and with a grin I boogied under blacklight.

I’m brown bell-bottomed corduroys with patches at the knees.
In my pocket folded over ticket from a Frampton show.
Grass stains creeping up my leg
from that night we dragged the keg
down into the woods behind the schoolyard.

We used to be so cool
Underneath the party lights our funky undulations ripped the night apart
We just forgot the rules
That evolution obsolescence manic-depressed coalesced to disappearance

Hung out and folded, scrunched up in ball under
miles of memories, stretched out like a pall over
indecent histories and chemical mysteries.
Remember when we were the in-thing?

Packed into a trunk tucked underneath the stairway
Buried under Twister and a ragged box of Payday
I’m the metal studded jacket and the scuffed-up cowboy boots
I’m a feathered white fedora with a polyester suit
I’m the transfer t-shirts with the Fonz, Sweathogs, and Monster movies
I’m not as think as you stoned I am, but baby I feel groovy

I’m banished to the dustbowl of undying never-ending:
Asynchronistic fashion faux pas swinging to and fro.
Let callous daring bring us back
to help ignore Blackwell’s attack,
and so our minds dissolving into fabric.

Sitting around during the COVID-19 pandemic, I decided now would be a (good?) time to share old recordings of songs I've written and recorded. Many of these were written as long as 25 years ago and recorded almost as long ago. They are (at best) demo quality, but for a 4 to 5 minute share, I thought I'd help to fill people's podcast feeds on a more regular basis.

There is no introduction or closing to each of these songs, just the song itself. I'll include the lyrics below if you can't quite believe what you might have heard me sing.

Many of them are quirky, narrative, and quite frankly from a bizarre place. I share simply because, at a quarter century old, I'm really past what people might think of these. Consider this a pandemic online archiving process. I'll try to put out one a day.

The first track is entitled Tangerine Frankenstein which, if I remember correctly, was inspired by reading one of those regular articles about someone powering a clock with a potato or some such thing. The idea was that if you could power a clock with a potato, why not Frankenstein with a tangerine?

And now you have an idea of where my head used to be at while writing songs.

Tangerine Frankenstein

I am a paradigm.  Sense scores by a nose.
Blue sails sucking up the sun.
I am the iconographer reduced to stick figures.
Crass acrobat underneath the gun.

Circus freak columbine pumped by the multi-facet ball.
Ecstasy Clementine spooned by the grease monkey alcohol.

...Holiday do you care I been waiting for his call an’ til he’s
had his toast and jam, make a beeline for Havana singing songs of Old Susanna.

I am semiotic, symbolic signifier, verbal ectoplasmagraphic goo.
I am syntheseismic, tectonic normalizer, cabalistic paranormal stew.

Couture chic valentine, runway-pathic optioneering slim.
Tangerine Frankenstein, autostatic flailing seraphim.

I seek the cosmic rototiller foraging through the underbrush.
Undiscovered tangleweed pulling at my boots
I leak orgasmic motor oil and I’m OHC/FI.
Son uncovered creator’s creed grasping for my roots.

Reykjavik I’m coming home, back to the land of the ice and snow.
Reykjavik I’m coming home.
I’ll be on Friday’s floe.

...Holiday do you care I been waiting for his call an’ til he’s
had his toast and jam, make a beeline for Havana singing songs of Old Susanna.

I am cyberotic. Infested technocratic literal command structure chew.
I’m phantasmagoric, dense rationalizer, exodermal jigsaw puzzle brew.

Couture chic valentine, runway-pathic optioneering slim.
Tangerine Frankenstein, autostatic flailing seraphim.

Citrus. Circuit. Systematic peel.

On this episode The MMD brings us his MM session, Amy Holland's How Do I Survive?

Listen to the end of the episode to find out who's been tagged for the next episode!

Can Candice and Anthony convince you of the CanCon nature of these songs?

Procol Harum - Conquistador.

Alice Cooper - The Ballad of Dwight Fry.

A conversation with artist Michael Dirisio and Workers' Arts and Heritage Centre Program Director, Hitoko Okada about the Archiving Unrest exhibition surrounding worker uprisings across Canada in 1919.

Royalty free music courtesy of of Hooksounds.

This week Jason @upinthisbrain Reese breaks the rules and digs deep into a Michael McDonald morning show theme! And Jason tags...