malaise

I wrote the lyrics to Malaise when I was going through some weird prolonged illness while I had my office job in Manhattan where I was experiencing what I think now to be bronchitis as well as a headache due to a sinus infection. Or something. I dunno, I had no health insurance and I was drinking lots of chamomile tea (which in hindsight was the wrong treatment for it in the first place) and kept close to falling asleep on many occasions at work. I had a sort of “White Light/White Heat” sound in my head, but the influence would have been too obvious in practice, so I put it on the back burner until many months later.

I’m feeling much better now, thank you.

we don’t need to live in fear

We Don’t Need To Live In Fear was originally a protest song about how governments keep their people subjugated through fear tactics, and how if I somehow found myself in a position of power that I’d try to dismantle that kind of mindset. But then I thought that this kind of song has been done and done much better than my attempt, but since I still liked the music, I thought I’d try to look up various myth stories from different cultures (Celtic, Ancient Greek and some sort of Native American) that dealt with confronting our fears. I like these lyrics approximately 17 times more than the first attempt.

sharpened

Sharpened is about a girl trying to find her place in her scary but beautiful world.

kosmosshif

You may be wondering why I titled both song and album Kosmosshif. Well, here’s the story of the century:

Back in January, I was desperate for a car, since Amy doesn’t own one and I just moved from a place where public transportation was king to a place where the house feels fairly remote without a personal vehicle. Fortunately my friend Bryan showed up from Rhode Island where he’s currently studying landscape architecture to help us with this pursuit. We eventually found a 1991 Suzuki Sidekick in Burlington on sale through Craig’s List for $1000. I had just enough savings to avoid having to take out a loan, and proceeded to contact the seller for more information. It turned out that she was leaving for Colorado that very day and was about to give it to a friend to sell for an extra $500 if no one would take her offer, even though there were a few people who tried bargaining the price down to no avail.

If you’ve never seen a Suzuki Sidekick (or its twin brother the Geo Tracker), it’s an interesting sight to behold. It’s a precursor to an SUV, but it’s lighter and narrower, and thus especially prone to flipping over if you’re not careful (which I assure you I AM). Of course, because she was leaving that day, she needed the transaction in cash, so Bryan and I headed down to the bank to empty out most of my savings. As we were waiting in line, we saw on CNN that a town in Texas spotted a UFO in broad daylight and stood in awe as to how something like that made it onto national news. Then when we sealed the deal with the lady who was to leave in an hour, she told us that she wasn’t the first owner of the car, but it was blessed through a Jewish ceremony by the people who originally sold it to HER.

We did an internet translation of spaceship in Yiddish, and “Kosmosshif” was christened. Well, maybe “christened” is the wrong word…but you get the idea.

8 am dream

I’m sorry once again…I’m not sure when I’ll be able to make regular updates, but I’ll try to get on the ball as soon as possible!

I’d been working on the guitar part for 8 AM Dream since I lived in Brooklyn, and I even had a vocal melody and everything, but I didn’t like how the vocals seemed to overpower the guitar; I really wanted to have the guitar part stand out on its own and have any accompaniment be just that: background.

It seems like I have my best dreams, or at least my most memorable dreams, when I go back to sleep after waking up in the morning. I’m not usually able to sleep all that much longer (although I do my damnedest to try), but the sleep I get is awash with detailed dreams that have the best chance for me to remember them. I’m not sure if this one was reminiscent of a dream, but I think I named the song after I woke up from one. Yatta!

comet

The lyrics to Comet was inspired by an anecdote mentioned in Carl Sagan’s Cosmos book.