Composing music has always been my most passionate endeavor. Here you’ll find (eventually) hundreds of songs, instrumentals, demos, and riffs that I’ve written and recorded over the decades – many under my performance name of Tarnished Karma
I like writing themes. I remember recording this one some forty years ago. I was laying down this great melodrama villain theme I’d composed and then I got tired of playing it. In fact, I wanted to change the mood. So, rather than doing another separate recording, I just extemporized a completely contrasting melody to work against the first part.
Never revisited it, but decades later I began to wonder that if the first part was the villain, who did the second part represent. Having recently seen the animated cartoon “Despicable Me” with its not so evil villain who ends up being a foster dad, I originally thought it might be the villain’s kid.
But then I remembered the Simpson’s episode in which Home goes off chasing “dog with a fluffy tail”, completely ignoring the fact he’s just seen his own double for the first time! Those two animations made it pretty obvious this composition was about “The Villain and His Dog.”
An upbeat little ditty, this piece is designed to go on forever by simply connecting the end to the beginning again. I’ve written quite a few circular songs over the years, but this was the first (and simplest) of the series. There’s something comforting about a positive spin that will go on forever, just like movies that finish up the story and then show the characters starting a new identical quest all over again, giving us the sense that the adventure is “Endless”.
This composition struck me as the start of a quest, when the entire journey lies ahead and one begins with eager anticipation of adventures to come. Again, one of my innocent optimistic tunes from the 1970s when I was in my late teens. You know, I always hear full orchestration when I write these things, then just jot down the basic sketch and leave it at that. But try to hear the the timpani and the French horn and the string section. If you can, I’ll never have to bother multi-tracking it!
I was pretty proud of this song back in the 1970s. It was one of the more adult pieces I wrote during that time. But years later, I listened to it again and realized it was exactly the same chording as “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” by George Harrison. Now, I never intentionally ripped him off, and there’s no melody line so it isn’t plagiarism exactly, and I don’t know if my subconscious was mimicking his song or creating a whole new one of my own. But, ol’ George himself did the same thing with “Isn’t it a Pity” on his “All Things Must Past” album, since it has the exact same chord progression as in the long fading chorus of “Hey Jude.” All in all, what the hell….
Back in the 1970s, a lot of what I wrote was extremely naïve and optimistic. These days, while I maintain the optimism, I’ve lost the naiveté, so my music is more complex, though not necessarily better. Innocence is pretty hard to maintain in a hard world, and even more difficult (though not impossible) to recover once it is lost. But this song, Mexican Morning, is just one of those simple little tunes (with no pretensions of being art) that joyfully ambles along, oblivious to any darker issues since there isn’t a cloud in the sky.
I wrote and recorded this one in the early 1970s. It begins with a quick quip before the song identifying it as the first recording on Volume 3 of my Composer’s Sketchbook (the first side of the second cassette).
You can read the lyrics below and follow along, if you like, as the recording itself it a bit muddy.
In regard to the lyrics and title of the song, I’ve never been suicidal myself, partly because I have seen horrible situations turn around so many times. I do understand that sometimes the pain can be so overwhelming that even if you absolutely knew that it would get better even in just a few days, it might still hurt so much that one has to end the pain rather than endure until the storm clears.
Still, I felt if one gets wrapped up in such thoughts, it almost becomes an act of courage to take that step you can never undo. And perhaps it is lifting oneself up to that point of courage that actually tips the balance toward suicide, and the pain is just the reason, not the trigger. One last defiant act.
Yet since that is so permanent, I believe it is worth taking one more look at the possibilities before committing to that irrevocable action. And that’s what this song is about: if you find the courage rising to take your own life because you cannot endure, stand back for just one moment before you take that step and consider. Costs you nothing and may just save your life for better times.
Lyrics
Ten or twenty ought to do the trick. Guaranteed to make me sleep, money back if I get sick.
What’s so wrong, with suicide? We all must die sometime. Why can’t I decide when to end the rhyme?
Nothing left to live for. Only clouds above. Funny how I’d settle for a smile and live on less than love.
Lonely, lonely, a scraped out hole inside. All my dreams with reality collide.
Mood change, thoughts rearrange, memory starts to move. Just when I’ve made a choice my mind will jump the groove.
Good times, good times… you know I’ve had a few. Rainy days and shades of grays give way to shades of blue.
Holding hands, holding more; long-lost friend is at the door. Why don’t we reminisce and make it like before?
Sunshine, sunshine: riding on a ray. Black out, back in, please don’t take my sunshine away.
I see it now: oh what a fool. What am I trying to prove? I’ll reach the phone and call for help. Oh, God, my arms won’t move…
Help me, help me. Please won’t someone help me… Help me, help me. Oh, God, won’t someone help me.
Help me….
Help me….
My Composer’s Sketchbook is available on Amazon with downloadable mp3s of every song, demo, and riff
The first movement of this piece sounds to me like a throwback to Elizabethan times. But then it quickly takes a left turn at Albuquerque where it finds some drugs and trips out.
The concept behind this composition is a message that no matter how down you feel, there is a path that will gradually lighten your load until you can rise again.
Pretty simplistic, rather, yet I’ve always believed that unless we are guided by ideals, we can never tell if we are compromising or capitulating.
A lot of my compositions are a bit staid. Big City Lights, however, was written when I was in a bit of wild mood. Not much to it – just the usual somewhat inventive chord progressions that I consider to be my trademark. But, the performance is rather off-the-wall. Keep in mind that these are just sketches – concepts lined out so that later they might be made into full-blown demos, even if not ever taken as far as a polished studio-style recording.
I really like the tune of this one. It’s a shame the recorder I was using fifty years ago just didn’t have the crispness to truly capture the sound, but you can still tune into the musical concept.
These are playful chords and the melody flits around them in unusual ways. I’d love to revisit this and do a proper recording with vocals – it’s practically crying out for some harmony.
Alas, at 68, there’s truly not enough time left to properly record even a fraction of the most worthy tunes in my Composer’s Sketchbook. Perhaps someday I’ll win the lotto and hire some proper musicians to record them in a studio. I know… Dream on…
