The Dying Californian - Lyrics & Chords - The Blue Myself

This is my version of "The Dying Californian," a traditional American folk hymn. It's another homemade demo recording under the name The Blue Myself (a band alternately known as Friends Around the Campfire, Wizard Pit, Sandy Mary, and, very rarely, Pandoraz Kunt - an offshoot of The Manna Tease created for songwriting / workshopping purposes.) I used my Les Paul, my turtleback mandolin, and an ancient Yamaha PSR-500M for the recording.

The melody follows roughly the same shape as the folk hymn (410 in the Sacred Harp, pictured at the very top), but this version is in D minor key (what Nigel Tufnel calls "the saddest of all keys") and in a loping 4/4. 

The chords are basically:

Dmin / / Gmin / / Dmin / /  Bb / A7 / Dmin

In the Sacred Harp, the words are credited to "Ball & Drinkard, 1859" - my favorite lyrics-writing duo since "Koch & Tokup." 

Lay up nearer, brother, nearer,
For my limbs are growing cold,
And thy presence seemeth dearer
When thy arms around me fold.  

 I am dying, brother, dying,
Soon you will miss me in your berth,
And my form will soon be lying
Beneath the ocean's briny surf.  

 Hearken to me, brother, hearken,
I have something I would say,
Ere this veil my vision darken
And I go from hence away,  

 I am going, surely going,
But my hopes in God are strong,
I am willing, brother, knowing
That He doeth nothing wrong.

Please "like" The Blue Myself on facebooks:

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XVI. Bethlehem & Sherburne

Speaking of sheep, Nahum Tate's "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks" is one of the most frequently set texts for carols. (I've always loved the juxtaposition of the mundane "all seated on the ground" with the glory shining all around, but I suppose that's the point.) The common setting in my caroling book is by Handel, and I think there's another old common British church hymn called "Winchester Old." The version I know best is Sherburne from the Sacred Harp, & it's also one of my favorite tunes in that book. This is the great Alan Lomax "field" recording:

Here's that recording on spotify. I found several other decent versions of that on spotify, here, here, & here. I really like this medley by the Western Wind called Three Settings of "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks." The excerpt of Sherburne is in this video:

The other setting in the Sacred Harp, Shining Star 461, doesn't appear to be on Spotify. (Will Fitzgerald has a nice round-up of Christmas tunes from the Sacred Harp here.)
However, William Billings, the great Sacred Harp composer, did set the words also, and the tune Bethlehem is published in the Norumbega Harmony. Here's Anonymous 4 singing it on spotify, & here's the Norumbega Harmony - two pretty tame versions, but still pretty. Here's a the Western Wind again:

I've also set the Tate text several times, here. & here's our incomplete Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs (listen on random!)

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs No. XXII

For the antepenultimate installment of the Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs, I drag out from the vaults again my miniature shape-note carols, several settings of Nahum Tate's "While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks By Night" text, sung by my one man Glee club:

JAMES - Christmas Shape-Note Carol

One of my favorite homemade Western Harmony tunes, JAMES, inspired by the Infancy Gospel of James.

(This demo mp3 can be downloaded free here. Originally posted here with lyrics.)

Different Shepherds: In Your Area

And here's another of my "Different Shepherds", settings of "While shepherds watch'd their flocks by night". (This mp3 downloadable here.)

Different Shepherds: June Star

I wrote some shape-note Christmas carols last year, which I'm happy to re-post for this season, in a series of Christmas songs leading up to yuletide.

I used Nahum Tate's famous text (from 1700) to compose a series of "Different Shepherds":

While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.

All glory be to God on high,
And to the Earth be peace;
Good will henceforth from Heaven to men
Begin and never cease!

Here's the first of several, June Star, with my demo solo-trio recording (downloadable here) - -

ODE ON SCIENCE: Arrangement of this old patriotic tune for voice, two pianos, & percussion

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

"Ode on Science" is a patriotic tune in the Sacred Harp (Page 242) - written in 1798 by Jezeniah Sumner. I've always felt the folk hymn arrangement left something to be desired. I made this arrangement rather quickly last year & for no real purpose: scored for high voice (soprano or tenor), two pianos & some abstract percussion. ("Drum" sort of drone, which could be elaborated upon, & "hit". which in my MIDI playback is a synth "orchestra hit", ala Miles Davis' Tutu. It could also be a kettledrum.) Since there is no likely premier performance of this ever upcoming, I'll post this little home recording I made with the MIDI playback - remember it's just a demo, MIDI playbacks are always robotic & unsatisfying, & my singing is, merely a demo. (The two piano arrangement could be a sketch to possibly orchestrate it someday, if any specific ensemble wanted an extraction.) OKAY: shout, Long live America!


Download that mp3 here. I love the anachronistic young-country nationalism in the lyrics:

The morning sun shines from the east,
And spreads his glories to the west,
All nations with his beams are blest,
Where’er the radiant light appears.

So science spreads her lucid ray
O’er lands which long in darkness lay:
She visits fair Columbia,
And sets her sons among the stars.

Fair freedom her attendant waits,
To bless the portals of her gates,
To crown the young and rising states
With laurels of immortal day:

The British yoke, the Gallic chain,
Was urged upon our necks in vain,
All haughty tyrants we disdain,
And shout, “Long live America.”

The score can be downloaded on Scribd. My arrangement is in the public domain:
Ode on Science - Arrangement for Voice, Two Pianos, Percussion

RUTH on Scribd

Now I'm going to put a bunch of my shape-note folk hymns up on Scribd, too. I don't know if that website is all they say it's going to be for self-publishing, but it's easy enough to put stuff on it. All of these pieces are in the public domain. I've put many of these folk hymns up on this website, so I'll experiment with different ways of presenting them on the itwaslost scribd page & may be elsewhere. You can toggle to full screen with that button in the upper-right-hand corner, (&, in firefox at least, F11 makes the browser window full-screen.)
RUTH - Shape-Note Anthem from the Western Harmony
(I'm not completely happy with how that "CutePDF" writer makes the score look.) RUTH is a four-part American folk anthem with text from the Book of Ruth. The original post with other copies of the score & further explanation was HERE. The demonstration recording (featuring my sexy four-part solo quartet) right here:

RUTH - Shape-Note Anthem & Demo Recording

One of my favorite shape-note pieces I wrote last year for the Western Harmony, an anthem to text from the Book of Ruth.

I had been procrastinating posting this anthem because I wanted to make a real good demonstration recording for it. I think my waiting has been in vain, but at least now you can get a rough idea how it might sound. (For some reason, using this one recording software with my digital mic, it has all these clicks.) And I promise you this piece can be a lot more intense & beautiful with a proper performance, but here's the demo:

That mp3 is HERE if you would like to download it. Here is the text as I used it, the King James version of the Bible, Ruth 1:10-12, 16-17. If you're unfamiliar with this short lovely book of the Old Testament, it's a tale of the women in a widowed family bonding & traveling.

Surely we will return with thee unto thy people.

And Naomi said, Turn [around], my daughters: why will ye go with me? are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands?
Turn again, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have an husband.

And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

Where thou diest, will I die.

After I wrote this, I was learned that another West Coast shape-note composer, Shelley Phillips, had used the text from Ruth in a different tune, a major-key fuging tune. That would make my Ruth technically Ruth (Second). There's a pdf file of her piece here.

It's now on Scribd too:
RUTH - Shape-Note Anthem from the Western Harmony

LEAVE THE GROUND - Tasteless Electric Guitar Version

One of my favorite shaped-note folk hymns for the Western Harmony, I wrote last year, is a dark slow goodbye song called "LEAVE THE GROUND." (The illuminations on that shape-note score are by Pele.) We sang it at the new music sing this January, & I also have a pretty version I sing on the guitar. I got out my amp to help a friend test her new slide guitar, & later on my Les Paul, I realized that if you play the open harmonies of "Leave the Ground" with a distortion pedal, they turn into power chords. So, this is probably the most tasteless things I've done to one of my more beautiful pieces, here is the electric guitar version of LEAVE THE GROUND:


UPDATE: The original sounded like suck, so I remastered it. Listen to it again, it's marginally better & cleaner!

These recordings are only demos, I apologize for my inability to produce decently (or, shred, for that matter.) Download that mp3 here. I promise to record a proper pretty version some day. The lyrics:

LEAVE THE GROUND

Leaving here, like departing our lives,
And home to our wives,
Could angels sing in heaven,
Can I finally sleep all night?
Could angels sing in heaven,
We'll be alright.

Hugging our friends, we love you so much,
Embrace like death's touch,
The last dance is the slowest,
Will the weakest win the fight?
The last dance is the slowest,
We'll be alright.

Now we must all shake hands & go home,
It's over & done.
Cherubic cars are waiting,
We must drive till morning light,
Cherubic cars are waiting,
We'll be alright.

Melancholy Day 419 - Tiny Ambiguity in the 1991 Sacred Harp

Visiting singer & teacher Tim Eriksen held a singing school in Berkeley the Saturday before last Sunday's Golden Gate Sacred Harp Convention. For most of the class, we listened to the fundamentals of music & a brief history of folk hymns in America, with a few songs taught part by part. There was a fairly reverent & glad feeling in the room. Then, near the end, after we had sung a bit, he asked if there were any specific songs that confused people. He began going over the parts to page 419, Melancholy Day (composed in 1859 by H.S. Reese to an especially dark text by Isaac Watts. I love this song & try to conduct it super slow, in four. Mr Eriksen said something about how it proves you can make a lot of music without a lot of chords - this song's harmonies are more modal than chordal.) But then the class disintegrated around two ambiguous measures, with everyone arguing & talking over each other - in that special way a well-behaved classroom can combust.

I had to run out the door & go to work at that moment, & I was a bit confused that we were dwelling on this, I don't know how it resolved. But when Mr Greg Freeman led it the next day, it threw me. Look at the way the text is printed for "To those who have no God." The text lines up differently below the treble, alto, & tenor. (In vocal music, when notes are slurred together, it generally means they're sung on one syllable.) We've been singing the tenor lining up incorrectly with the words below it, even tho the way it's slurred lines up with the alto perfectly. In the next edition, they should put the correct words below the tenor. This recording of Alabama's United Sacred Harp Convention in 1959 corroborates the correct way:


Mr David Wright of Seattle, Washington, (in the comment below) tells us that it's an Alan Lomax recording, released in 1977. "To those who have no God" is at 1:07, (the first time thru they sing the shaped-notes.) This short essay about an extremely subtle detail was mainly an excuse to post this excellent song. Here's the lyrics:

Death, ’tis a melancholy day,
To those who have no God,
When the poor soul is forced away
To seek her last abode.

In vain to heav’n she lifts her eyes,
For guilt, a wearing chain
Still drags her downward from the skies
To darkness, fire, & pain.

Isaac Watts' Hymn 123 - Funeral Hymn-Death Dreadful, or Delightful can be read in context HERE. Looks like there's other American folksongs that use the other verses, I'd like to hear them if anyone knows where they can be found!

BEER - Shaped-Noted Score & Demo Solo-Quartet Recording

While Jesus is harrowing hell, I thought today might be an appropriate time to make a short demo recording of my shape-note tune "BEER". Thursday was International Transubstantiation Day (also known as Holy Thursday), where around the world, millions who consider themselves devoted Christians are drinking grape juice instead of mimosas. Download this demo mp3 here.


Happy Easter & Passover, & this song is set to a poem from William Blake's Song of Innocence & of Experience:

Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold,
But the Ale-house is healthy & pleasant & warm:
Besides I can tell where I am use'd well,
Such usage in heaven will never do well.

But if at the Church they would give us some Ale.
And a pleasant fire, our souls to regale:
We'd sing and we'd pray all the live-long day:
Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.

And God like a father rejoicing to see.
His children as pleasant and happy as he:
Would have no more quarrel with devil or barrel
But kiss him & give him both drink and apparel.

Remember, earlier I posted a solo version of this song, more free & lonesome if that's the way you like your beer.

TURMERIC - Shape-Noted Score & Demo Solo-Quartet Recording

I wrote this short tune yesterday, after reading about Erasmus Darwin & his sexy plant poetry. (More about that later I hope.) The famous stanza about Curcuma (Turmeric, Flax), which includes in the footnote some foreshadowings of his son Charles Darwin's theories. (The page in The Botanic Garden in Google Books is here. That version of the book has prints by William Blake, including the one to the right.) The idea is that the four "eunuch" male organs on Curcuma ("four beardless youths") are similar to human male nipples, i.e. unintelligent design. However, I was struck by how, taken out of context, the stanza is quite mystical; not simply a woman being wooed by her beloved amongst other chaste loves, but ambiguous in the way that much medieval & Islamic love poetry can be read on many levels. Which is why I left the song so short, as an ambiguous fragment. Also, turmeric is delicious. My demo recording is not the prettiest this song can be sung, but will do as a demonstration. Download this mp3 here.

Woo'd with long care, Curcuma, cold and shy
Meets her fond husband with averted eye:
Four beardless youths the obdurate beauty move
With soft attentions of Platonic love.

WALNUT - Shape-Note Score with Demo Solo-Quartet Recording

The text for this shape-note tune WALNUT is from William Billings' Lamentation Over Boston. Billings was the first American composer to publish American music in America, & hung out with the likes of Paul Revere & the Adamses. His Lamentation echoes Psalm 137 (By the waters of Babylon...) but about the Revolutionary War, & it ends with this lovely bit about dissonance & consonance. Around this time, Billings also published a dissonant composition called "Jargon", in rebellion from his critics who claimed his American harmonies were breaking the rules. "Walnut" doesn't break too many rules, not that there are any left to break, but it does have a couple of nice Billings-esque parallel motion moments. Here's a demo mp3 of the harmonies, which you could download here.


The text as I use it: (& I apologize, the second word should be "horrid" in the score & recording, & will be fixed next time around.)

Let horrid Jargon split the Air and rive my nerves asunder.
Let hateful discord greet my ear as terrible as Thunder.

If I forget thee, yea, if I do not remember thee,
Then let my numbers cease to flow, Then be my Muse unkind,
Then let my Tongue forget to move and ever be confin'd.

Let harmony be banish'd hence and Consonance depart;
Let dissonance erect her throne and reign within my Heart.

If I forget thee, yea, if I do not remember thee,
Then let my numbers cease to flow, Then be my Muse unkind,
Then let my Tongue forget to move and ever be confin'd.

(The full poem is here.)

METATRON'S CUBE - Shape-Note Score & Demo Solo-Quartet Recording

Here is a new folk hymn with shaped-notes, written this winter for the Western Harmony. A tune about Enoch, it draws on several sources - first, Genesis Chapter 4, which describes how Enoch "walked with God"; second, the Metatron's Cube (Enoch became Metatron, the highest angel, in Jewish mythology), which is a "flower of life" in sacred geometry; in the Sacred Harp, the quote above the song "EXIT" is from Job, "He comes forth like a flower & is cut down", which I use & also echo the first few notes of the fuging section in Exit; & lastly the "round & round" bit in the circular fuging section is also a nod to the circles in Metatron's Cube. Download this demo mp3 here, there's a pdf of the score here.
Here's the lyrics:

METATRON'S CUBE

Mahalaleel lives eight hundred & ninety five winters,
He comes like a flower & is cut down.
Methuselah for one thousand years, dies among sinners,
Arise my soul & leave the ground.

Oh, but Enoch, old & holy Enoch,
Walks with God, & he is not,
For God takes him, takes him round & round.

Up on a little hill, Calvary, three trees bear blossoms,
He comes like a flower & is cut down.
And am I born to die, or can I fly from my tomb?
Arise my soul & leave the ground.

Oh, my Jesus, young & blessed Jesus,
Son of Man, & is cut down,
For God takes him, takes him round & round.

RICHARDSON - Shaped-Note Score & Demo Solo-Quartet mp3 Recording

RICHARDSON is a four-parted shaped-noted arrangement of Richard Fariña's song "Children of Darkness" (1966). Since it is an arrangement of a copyrighted song, I tentatively add it to the "additional songs" addendum to the Western Harmony. As for the demo recording, I remind you that I'm making these just to demonstrate the harmonies, & for the joy of it, I warn you they are sloppy, this one has its own unique intonational moments, & in general not for the auricularly sensitive. Download this demo mp3 here. And this version of the lyrics is alterned only minutely to fit the stricter rhythms - (like in the great Joan Baez / Peter Schickele version, I drop the lame fourth verse.)

Oh, now is the time for your loving, dear,
And time for your company.
Now, the light of reason fails
And fires burn on the sea.
Now in this age of confusion
I have need for your company.

For I am a wild & a lonely child,
And son of an angry man.
Now the high wars raging,
I will offer you my hand.
We are the children of darkness
And the prey of a proud, proud land.

It's once I was free to go roaming in
The wind of a springtime mind.
Once the clouds I sail'd upon
Were sweet as lilac wine.
Why are the breezes of summer, dear,
Enlaced with a grim design?

Rahm's Empire

If you missed it in the profile on Rahm Emanuel in the March 2nd, 2009, New Yorker, his response to being asked what he thought about Fidel Castro's bizarre editorial on the name "Rahm Emanuel" (which I translated & re-translated down in this post) was:

"Well, you know, ever since I stopped sending him my holiday card he's been ticked off. I don't know what to think about it. Do you know what I'm thinking about? I'm going to finally get to see my kids after a month. So that's all I give a fuck about."

My mother forwarded me a paranoid e-mail called "Rahm's Empire" from the Nevadan Republican Party, which had this handsome photo of Mr Emanuel, handsomely scheming to politicize the census. (She's knows I have a crush on him because he was a dance major at Sarah Lawrence College, the itwaslost.org alma mater.)

I watered my plants & also my internet router, so I'll probably be quieter on the tubes for the next few days. I got a message this morning from someone I rarely correspond with, worried "James, you've gone unusually silent. Are you OK?" My computer's only been down twelve hours! I assure you I'm alive & the public library has internets also. I'll be seeing John Zorn tonight & tomorrow I'll be singing onstage with the famous Massachusetts folksinger Tim Eriksen & a half dozen Berkeley shape-note singers 9:30pm Wednesday night at the Cafe du Nord (Market & 14th) in San Francisco. Come if you can! Here's the facebook invite.

DOLORES - Shape-Note Score & Demo Solo-Quartet Recording

This is a song I found from my research into Christian Rock. I'd like to exert a greater effort searching thru that mysterious genre (and all Modern Christian music in general, from the bland devotional to the underground rap) looking for the rare gems. Thank you Mrs Whiting Smith for tipping me off to some of the stuff she listened to in her born-again youth. Michael W Smith is a real find, the sexy 1980s Christian Pop. I arranged this song last year, into a four-part shape-note folk hymn, & spent quite awhile tinkering with the harmonies & rhythms. Some of the words have been changed, & many of the harmonies. The attempt was to find the traditional American roots in the flashy 80s pop song. I'm not sure I succeeded, but the result is at least interesting. These demo recordings, I remind you, are simply to preview the harmonies, I apologize for their amaturity. (Download that mp3 here. If you'd like a pdf of the score, it's page 8 in this pdf.) The handsome bearded man pictured is John Babson Lane Soule, the man who actually originally supposedly said "Go West, young man."

OEDIPA - Shape-Note Score

On February 5th, I put up a demo recording of my four-part shape-note tune OEDIPA. But like a fool! I had lost the scanned copy of the score. Well, I just rescanned it & here it is. The lyrics are in the original post here. Click on either of these two players for a rough idea of what it might sound like.

OEDIPA - Demo Solo-Quartet Recording

Here's a four-part shape-note new tune for the Western Harmony, loosely based on No. 449 in the Sacred Harp (which according to the fasola.org statistics, is one of the most infrequently led songs, probably due to a vaguely fascist resonance. I've attempted to correct that.) These recordings are just meant as demos to test the harmonies & play with my new microphone. Download this mp3 here - I'm sorry, I thought I had scanned this score, but I promise I will soon & get it up as soon as possible.

I've murdered my fatherland, wed my motherland,
Now I must build a bigger mansion.
We'll get twenty maids & we'll sweep up this sand,
This paradise needs an expansion.
Let's get twenty maids, wouldn't it be grand
To clean up this beautiful land.

I can't hear the song of the hallelujah band,
Angels muffled by din's eruption.
My eyes are blurry, I'm too weak to stand,
I am the chaos & corruption.
My eyes a blur, but wouldn't it be grand
To clean up this beautiful land.

So beat up your sword, put your plowshare in your hand,
Nations shall not learn war anymore,
Our land is rotten & forgotten, and,
My Lord has asked me to sweep the floor.
Learn war no more, and wouldn't it be grand,
To clean up this beautiful land.