This Illusion

Just a short snippet of a chorus I am working on for this new song. The song was inspired when taking a walk in Gahanna where I am currently living. I was actually at a mall today and seeing all these crazy stores like Louis Vitton coming into the mall is just insane to me. I feel like it's this illusion of wealth that people feel they have to keep up and it's so false. Who can afford a Louis Vitton purse? Why would anyone spend that much money on a purse in the first person but what soccer mom can afford that from the suburbs? I also feel like these corporations flaunt this wealth and dangle the prize so everyone wants a piece of it. Ohh look how fancy you can be, look how important you are with that necklace..etc. I've been thinking a lot about the suburbs as I am living here now and how interesting and different the culture is. I hate to hate on the suburbs as I am from here. I just want something different with my life. I don't mind the quiet and the feeling of safety but it's just so vanilla. Annnyway..I digress.

This is the motown/pop feel and there will be at least one other version that has a more modern feel to it. I've been listening to a lot of Mayer Hawthorne so this song is definitely in the same vein. I love his stuff and I have been working on getting more 3 and 4 part vocal harmony stuff going like this one I think it turned out nice. I will expand on this idea. Any suggestions?

Three More Songs

This is a song I've been working on a while and I think the arrangement is there at least as far as order is concerned and such. I plan to record a lot of these songs incorporating background singers (hopefully not just me overdubbing) so you'll hear those in here.


Here is an old song actually I wrote this a long time ago and I still play it live but it's needed something for a while. I am working on a bridge and an outro that flips the heavily minor chorded song to major for a bit. It is mainly made up vocals so far but it will be an uplifting type bridge probably as the song leans toward the dark side in many ways. One time a man came up to me with his story about vietnam or that he was trying to get bus fair for his brother that was in the hospital or something..I can't remember. Anyway, he asked for change and I pulled out what I thought was a dollar and ended up being a 5, I couldn't put it back so I gave it to him. He then offered me the jacket off of his back to pay me back. I tend to write about topics that I am intrigued by and the issue of homelessness is one of them. Are they hustling you? Are they really trying to find bus fair to help their sick brother? If we really did all have more trust would we all be better off?

Excuse the vocals on this some of them are a bit "sick" sounding as I have had some throat trouble recently. I just wanted to capture the ideas that were flowing as they came. Let me know what ya think of these tunes!

People Got Nothing

I hear people say "you are just playing the sterotype", or "just because your _____ doesn't mean I have to treat you any differently" or "it's still lazy, it's still incompetent, even though you are this color or that color". Yes, we should never judge someone by the color of their skin, but that's the problem. Skin color has nothing to do with people..it's just outer appearance. Culture, circumstance, patterns of behavior, are all things to consider when dealing with people. If someone is mentally handicapped you would not talk to them like you would someone that is a Harvard scholar, you treat them the same yes but the fact is they come from different backgrounds, they have lived very very different lives. It's ok to have sympathy for someone that is mentally handicapped and try to understand where they are coming from though it may be very difficult to do so. It does not mean you are feeling sorry for them but it just takes that much more to be able to understand them as they are from a completely different background than you are. I feel this goes the same way for someone from a different country or different area of town even. Everyone is different but deep down we are all exactly the same. We all want the same thing. This song is partly different stories that people I know have told me about their lives. The things that they went through, the places they come from, are very different from where I come from. I come from a middle class family and have lived in the suburbs up until I was 18-19. I knew only my surroundings and never saw really any crime at all. I went to school, I played violin, I ate dinner with my family, I played sports, I had good friends, I had a pretty good life. My upbringing has led me to be able to do really great things. My college was paid for by my parents, I have a bachelors degree, no debt, and play music for a living. I work very very hard to do so but I have always had really great support for the most part from my parents. I try to look at other people that may not have been so fortunate. Check out the song, let me know what ya think it's a work in progress.

People In The Streets

This song came to me when thinking about passing homeless people in the street, ignoring them, basically trying to feel some kind of empathy or at least sympathy for them. People tend to ignore these people or just pass them off like they don't matter and even treat them as just like..furniture or something to just totally leave out of mind. I am guilty of this and I often think about what their story is, what they did to get where they are. It might be drugs, it might be a mental illness, it could be abuse, and it could just be poor choices or even laziness. I tend to think most people that are homeless are probably not just lazy they have had a hard hand given to them. I am a total proponent of getting up and seizing the day, getting shit done, but sometimes if you have only been given horrible horrible circumstances and that lead you to do drugs, and then you are broke, and then on the street..it's not as easy as "get a job". If you have never been to that rock bottom or seen that side of life it's very hard to understand and I try really hard to understand everyone because we are all people in the end. Anyway, off my soap box..so that's kinda the idea of this song. Also watching intervention and what not kinda gave me some ideas on this.

Sinking Teeth new version!

Added a bridge and some crazy goofy vocals at the end which will be horns eventually, it's supposed to be a New Orleans sound I forget what it's called with all the horns playing at the same time. Hoodoo Soul Band at Rumba every Sunday does a great song with this in it and they march around the venue, good times. This song is really shaping up, getting it done..feels good today!

Side Note

Sorry I've been a little absent. I've been working on this with my team of awesome people, Please check it out and stay tuned for more posts!

Not Worth Fighting Anymore

Not Worth Fighting Anymore by efilsitra
 This is a song that the chorus has been floating around in my head for a while. Today I sat down at the keyboard and the chords and verse and lyrics just flowed out naturally, I love when that happens. The words really just laid right out, they may not be perfect yet but they feel good that's a start. Here are the words so far and the audio does not reflect all the words yet it's just really to get the feel. Here are essentially my working notes:

Verse

The very first time I saw you I was intriqued

F                                 Am   Dm

Following you around like some kind of creep

F                                 Am   Dm

You looked like someone I knew I had to meet

F A Bb

As the sun went down we talked and laughed and bathed our feet

F                                 Am   Dm

Verse

The fact that we met again I felt it must be fate

Darkness covered all of the park and I knew I was too late

With all these tangled wires insanity can   b break

But this time I knew it was the screen that saved

Chorus

lead in with C ?

When it isn't worth fighting anymore

F C

When it isn't worth the time that it was before

F C

When it takes everything in you not to bleed

Gm         C

That's when you know

                   Bb

That it's time to go

              C(7)            F

Verse

The years went by and I dove much further in

I became a master of disguise a pro at disconnection

Every time I'd cry I'd let that water roll down the drain

I knew there was something better but I could not break free

Bridge?

But you didn't come up to bed that fateful night

You had no fight left in you

I knew right then then it was over I had to make things right

I care too much I was done with what you put me through (something like that)