Here’s an experimental ode to the deep of night, when the world stops and I can be alone in the luxurious late-night obscurity of the studio to howl into the dark and follow the echoes.

This one gets a little trippy as I play with layers of vocal delay and feedback on the minimalist poetry over vocal Aaaahs. I tried to follow those echoes into an extended late-night feeling. I also try something here that I don’t often do: make the chorus out of an instrumental guitar line. It’s got a good beat, so if you’re inclined, dance along like everyone else is asleep.

Listen to Dead of Night on YouTube.

Dead of Night

Out of mind
Out of sight
Nothing wrong
Nothing right
Catch a vibe
Catch a flight
Dead calm
Dead of night

Take a dive
Take a bite
After hours
Gravesite
Deconstruct
Candlelight
Walking with
Dead of night

Misanthrope
Socialite
Prison break
Searchlight
Smuggle out
Extradite
Running from
Dead of night

Twitchy tongue
Sit tight
Barely there
Or upright
Making way
By flashlight
Deep into
Dead of night

I wrote a song last week about some of the big, confusing, often exasperating mysteries of life, personal and global. Am feeling even more so after this week’s exposed vulnerabilities here in Austin where we spent three freezing days without power and are now waiting for safe drinking water to return.

What Do I Know?

Where do we come from and where do we go?
What am I doing here? What do I know?
When will I become who I want to be?
I can’t ignore all the shit I see.

Why cannot humans cooperate?
To kill the cancers of war and hate?
Why do we think ourselves as separate?
We’re killing ourselves with the planet.

What do I know?
No guarantees
What can I say?
It’s a mystery to me

Is it wrong that I touch myself?
Is it wrong that I think of you?
Locked inside a wooden box up in the tower
Over the falls, overwhelmed and overpowered

We come together then we shoot apart
We call it love then we make it art
Every day is just another wave
A shadow on the wall inside the cave

What do I know?
Boredom and ecstasy
What can I say?
It’s a mystery to me

What do I know?
Boredom and ecstasy
What can I say?
It’s a mystery to me

First they appeal to our identity
And make the other a nonentity
Then you ignore their humanity
And get real angry like Sean Hannity

Where do you go if you got no home?
What do you do if you get real sick?
Which of these Christians watches out for you
When you’re a refugee?

What do I know?
Sorry, I disagree
What can I say?
It’s a mystery to me

What do I know?
People not property
What can I say?
It’s a mystery to me
a fuckin mystery

Begin Again

(recorded on my phone)

when,  at the end of a crazy day
I’ve got the nightmare on replay
god, what did I say?
forgive my sins
I need a gin
and to begin again

when, at the end of a disastrous  year
we all see the thing we fear
loud and clear
can I extend a hand?
manage to mend
and begin again

when, at the end of a life cut short
and I’m trying to protect my heart
and then a song come on
reminds me who’s gone
and I cannot comprehend
how to begin again

why’s it so hard to let go? (I’ll never forget)
how can I ever un-know? (what they’ve done to my head)
how can I move past the pain?
I am afraid
to begin again

when, at the end of a life so long
I’ve written my thousand songs
and they put me in the ground
still diggin my sounds
amen
I’m zen
begin again

An ode to a few recently extinct mammals and a plea to value those that are not yet gone. They are us. Listen to Collapse on YouTube.

Collapse

The Eastern hare wallaby and
The Desert bandicoot
The White-footed rabbit-rat and
The Broad-faced potoroo

The Bulldog rat, the Bluebuck and
The Dusky flying fox
The Falkland Island wolf and
The Big-eared hopping mouse

The Madagascan pygmy Hippo and
The Christmas Island shrew
The Gloomy tube-nosed bat and
Goodfellow’s tree-kangaroo

The Sea mink and the Forrest ox and
The Relict leopard frog
The Caribbean monk seal and
The Utah prairie dog

Collapse, collapse
these creatures could not last
how long till we’re aghast?
Perhaps collapse

Collapse, collapse
and all of it forecast
let’s not be the last
before collapse

The Blue whale and the Fin whale and
The Wild water buffalo
The Ganges river dolphin and
De Winton’s golden mole

The Japanese Sea Lion and
The Lightning man triplefin
The Shortnose sucker, the Rhim gazelle and
The Philippine pangolin

The Giant crowned flying fox and
Père David’s deer
The Bluemask darter, the Hong Kong grouper and
The Idaho ground squirrel

The Jamaican monkey, the Large sloth lemur and
Emma’s giant rat
The Bornean ferret-badger and
Bokermann’s nectar bat

Collapse, collapse,
we’re falling and falling fast
and our head is up our ass
in this unsurpassed collapse

Collapse, collapse
and all of it forecast
let’s not be the last
before collapse

I supplied the title to the group for this week’s song – Bones – because I had just started teasing Maile singing this line: “My baby is boilin the bones, she’s got them in a pot what she found by the side of the road.” We laughed about it and it got stuck in our heads. She was singing it too, so I took my comedic tribute and made it a  funky celebration of Maile’s creative connection to the natural world and its healing powers.

Bones

My baby is boilin the bones
She’s got them in the pot what she found by the side of the road
My baby is boilin the bones
She can see the beauty in the things that nature shows

She’ll bind you up some sage and burn it
She’ll gather up rosemary and urn it
She got aromatherapies for you anxieties
My baby she will bring you earth’s bouquet

She’ll boil linden leaves for dreamin
She’ll steep some oat straw tea for soothin
She’ll brew tranquility, sip some harmony
She knows earth gives her medicines away

My baby is boilin the bones
She’s got them in the pot what she found by the side of the road
My baby is boilin the bones
She can see the beauty in the things that nature sews

She’ll use seed pod as a bead (and repeat it)
She’ll make a tincture with some weeds (and treat it)
She’ll turn salt into a scrub and make it smell like love
My baby she can use what nature gave

She’ll turn a bean pod into earings (can you hear it?)
She’ll make juniper into gin, my friend (can you cheers it?)
She’ll make your heart start seeing things as beings with feelings
My baby she can  see what nature say

My baby is boilin the bones
She’s got them in the pot what she found by the side of the road
My baby is boilin the bones
She can see the beauty in the things that nature codes

Is that a snakes spine? I don’t know!
Is that a skunk skull? Who can tell?
She found a turtle shell! How old was it?
She found an owl pellet! Let’s sift through it.

My baby is boilin the bones
She’s gonna paint em, mount em, adorn em and give them to her mom
My baby is boilin the bones
She can see the beauty in the things that nature grows
She can see the beauty in the things that nature throws
She can see the beauty in the things that nature knows

Gray invited me to join the song-a-week club with a small group of musicians. A title is proposed and everyone writes a song with that title. This week it was: Anybody Else?

Anybody Else?

I’m been talking through my mask
Tryin to see through foggy glass
Anybody else tired of tying to see and be heard?

I’ve been taking lots of walks
Tryin to get out of my box
Anybody else diggin this life differed?

I’m givin up on all the news
Cuz it was givin me the blues
Anybody else lookin for someone that understands?

My forearms are always sore
From guitars and keyboards
Anybody else just thankful for their hands?

I feel like I’m gonna make it someday
But what if that day is today?
What if it’s never getting better?
I’m never gonna make a lota cheddar
I’m just so glad we’re still together
Anybody else woulda been long gone

I’ve been wanderin round the yard
Lookin kinda avant-garde
Anybody else walking the dog in your robe?
(How’d it get in your robe?)

I’m seeing concerts on the lawn
Dreamin a stage to put them ’em on
Anybody else wanna be in the show?

One day I’m gonna make it all come true
Summer livin somewhere warm with you
Sailin away for a season, forgettin about all this treason
Until then we’re gonna power through

I feel like I’m gonna make it someday
But what if that day is today?
What if it’s never getting better?
I’m never gonna be a trendsetter
I’m just so glad that we are still together
Anybody else woulda just moved on

I feel like I’m gonna make it someday
But what if that day is today?
What if it’s never getting better?
All of my prayers are dead letters
I’m just so glad that we are still together
Anybody else would be sick of my songs

Gray and I set up on his front stoop the night before Holloween this year for the first of what I hope to be many ambient sunset sets. Here is one selection of swirling sounds to slow the senses.

I’ve been singing little protest songs to my self for the past few years. I idolize Dylan, Guthrie, Seeger, so this is only natural. But when I read the headline this week — The White House Goes Dark — I did a double-take.

Could a headline be more poetically descriptive of this presidency? I felt I had been handed a perfect chorus for a protest song. And since it was news, I made the verses a report of this incredible week’s unfolding, the context of the White House going dark.

What a week. The national and international outrage at George Floyd’s murder and everything that has followed is like a colossal dam breaking. I hope my song report does it justice.

Coward In Chief

George Floyd was murdered by Minnesota cops
And the people are marching, enough is enough
Four hundred years and finally phones
Have shown the white folks what black folks have known

This country was built and is ever so
For white folks to go where we want to go
But if you are black there is no safe space
A cop might just kill you for the look on your face

And the laws are set up and a jury will find
He was doing his job, he will be reassigned
Just blame a black man for being a thug
Say he resisted, he must be on drugs

But how many times can we stomach this shit?
We’re crying Bullshit on these old hypocrites!

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
The old patriarch
Is busy gaslighting

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Hating and berating
Stoking petty infighting

But peaceful protesters are flooding downtowns
Marching together black, white and brown
Trying to salvage what can be saved
Of our poor nation’s soul, so long enslaved

Still others are looting and cops are still shooting
And why does it seem like they’re all colluding
To take down the ones whose civility
Make peace and justice a possibility

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Retreating and tweeting
Violence inciting

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Tweeting, retweeting
Inciting rioting

And his staff say Do Something but he has no idea
How to do anything but spread lies and fear
He cannot help, has nothing to bring
So it’s back to his bunker like a cowardly king

And his party is silent as he drags us all down
Dividing and cheating and pushing the bounds
Everything part of his constant campaign
To break down the country for his personal gain

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Retreating and tweeting
Violence inciting

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Democracy is dying
Putin is smiling

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
But the people are marching
United and crying

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
He’s afraid of the people
Cause he sees them uniting
Afraid of the people
Cause he sees them abiding
Afraid of the people
Cause he sees The Uprising

Happy 4/20 from Austin, Texas! I cut out of work a little early today to lay down this old Van Morrison favorite in honor of 4/20/2020. If you couldn’t tell, I’m keepin it weird, dressed as a pack of M&Ms in Maile’s sunglasses (over my glasses).

I’ve been working through the songs on one of my favorite albums, John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band. It seemed like a good time to post this one.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Practing “Isolation” by John Lennon while also practing isolation by pandemic.

A post shared by J Molin (@jason.molin) on Mar 28, 2020 at 4:21pm PDT