For Winter Term, Ken and I are arranging and recording a bunch of his songs on my four-track. I finally accepted how good his songs are and I approached him last semester about recording them. When I first heard his songs I was able to admit they were clever, but I condescendingly brushed them off as being lightweight because they were humorous. I think it was a blow to my pride to admit that he was a much better songwriter than I am.
But the more I heard and the more he played them at coffeehouses, there was no denying that he is an exceptional songwriter. He writes a lot of songs with Asian American issues and themes and what he invokes with his lyrics are stunning. The more I get to know the songs, I’m realizing that this is quality material in every aspect. The lyrics are amazing, the melodies are catchy, the music is simple but solid, the stories are developed, and the subject matter relevant.
My doubts are now about whether I can rise to the occasion and contribute to them without taking anything away from them. My own stuff is pretty inaccessible and I think my arrangements are also overly complicated and equally inaccessible. So my approach in recording Ken’s songs will have to emphasize simplicity and taste.
Aside from recording Ken's songs and rehearsing with the steel drum band, which I just rejoined after they were kind enough to let me back in (after I quit for a semester because I didn't like being the only person of color in an all white band playing black music), I’m re-recording the vocals of the "One After Another" set of songs I recorded in 1989. My voice back then was so bad that I can hardly bring myself to listen to those songs. But it’s bad, that collection was done, why can’t I just let it rest? That’s what I did back then, why can’t I just accept them the way they are? I hope this isn’t the pattern of my life where I’m constantly going back to re-do things that I should just let go of. Two steps forward, one step back. I’ll make an exception for this project because I think re-recording these vocals will be a significant improvement over what’s on tape now.
Future insertion: Songs with vocals/guitar re-recorded during this time period:
You Don't Have To
I guess you got a problem if you're only happy hurting yourself
But who am I to say it's a problem?
After all, you're happy
There are some things you'll never do
Some things you'll never say
Some things put off for another day
Any time now, any time
Why not tomorrow?
Why not today?
Right now, right, right now
If it's really right
I guess you got a problem if you got a goal no one can agree with
I guess you got a problem if you're stuck on labels of the human myth
I guess you got a problem if you're caught between expectations and images
I guess you got a problem with communication
I guess you got a problem with relationships
I guess you got a problem if your only wish is to be someone like yourself
Hey there, over there, are you waiting for something?
Something you know may never come
Something you're sure has already begun
And you tell me you'll never see the stars the same way again
In each one lies a memory, but in each one also lies a destiny to choose
And you choose 'cos you have nothing to lose
So you lose it and you can't decide on how you're gonna prove it's alright
Your vision's still in sight or so you think once or twice every day
So you know it as a fact but is that all there may be
To keep your ideals intact and what about your sanity?
A string of indecision may be all you may need
To find yourself off the track, are you scared you won't see?
The crossing up ahead is not for safety
It's not gonna make your crossing risk-free
You may be free of care, but still not carefree
Instead you're gonna have to realize
How many people survive to keep you alive
Some people tell you to be more serious
Some tell you to stop thinking so much
Some people tell you to be more social
Some tell you to stop drinking so much
Some people tell you to not burn yourself out
Some tell you you're not doing enough
Some people tell you you're much too blatant
Some tell you you're not open enough
Some people know that they know it all
You think you know nothing at all
Some people kill to get up that ladder
You're willing to let yourself fall
Because they tell you keep it on the inside
Don't let it out, don't let anyone know
And don't care that you don't want them to cry
'Cause believe me, they'll cry
Though you may keep on asking them why
So where do you draw the line?
They don't want your kind around here
Don't bring your suicides around here
Can you only draw the line?
Will you ever realize?
I guess you got a problem if you're only happy hurting yourself
The Flow of Water, part II
That razor's gonna fall
That razor's gonna fall
Someone is gonna stand at the top
Of the Empire State Building and drop
The contents of a telephone box
All the words that were were complex verses
Poetry in motion, Times Square in a clock
Unusual habits of usual plots
Unusual habits of usual plots
I've been told many times before
To not play games I can't afford
I'm ashamed pathetic and I'm terribly bored
Of this rat race where everybody wants more
That's one game for which I'm totally broke
For which my engines are throwing up smoke
The one thing certain can't stand to debate
But it's a losing endeavor to change a fate
So I throw the rubber ball
To anyone at all interested
In some genuine moonshine
Revealing contrails against the sky
The paths of maximum resistance
Leads to lesser known planes without assistance
It's a tricky charade to a better existence
Oh I know, do I know?
How would I know?
That day is gonna come
That day is gonna come
That day is when you're shocked by the truth
That you never knew you let go of your youth
And the world from which you thought you were safe
Is here in your hometown throwing guilt in your face
And you can't ignore it and you can't escape
The social Frankenstein we all create
Oh, I can see America at night
And I can see it without any life
I'm scared plenty by the armies of ants
And the giants who crush them with their chemical plants
Oh, one more schoolgirl out on parade
In a fashion show with an image they made
With a conscience overloading heavy in red
With a load of coal for a heart that's dead
Oh, I know, dropping spit on birds
Catching venomous words, flash of light
Retrieving manuals from the Western land
To form the expose of demands
In the house of our ideal
We hear heads against walls, cooking chickens for meals
And the creaking of the stairs to the kitchen revealed
Oh sunshine, the sun shines
Some still shine
So what do we do now after all we have done?
Do we settle and feed the ending we have begun?
It isn't right, it can't be right
To prove the instance of our worth
Crawling on the edge of the railing
At the crux of our birth
This isn't what technology's about
To make us lazy and not care throughout
The process made to detach our doubts
That we may be crashing on our way out
It takes one moment in infinite time
To finally reveal we're in the firing line
To acknowledge our role in accepting our crime
To impersonalize our human kind
It's our loss if we just shake our hands
And tie knots with rubber bands
To weave our tongues within the rotting frame
Seeking someone else to take the blame
In the image of our peers
We know nothing to hear or remove the stains
So we drag the years through finger paints
So we cover our balls to conceal our pain
And we flash our smiles to pretend we're saints
Are we saints? To re-paint or remain?
A Living Room
You and I we sit
Our living room is lit by moonlight
Inside our retreat from the rest of the world
We can see the outside through closed eyes
The traffic goes by
The Hudson seems still out our cold living room window
Ripples shatter reflections of the glow of the city on the other shore
The glow is like a solid dome keeping warm the children safe at home
Streetlamps and windows make patterns of the nightlife's flesh and bones
Points of lights rise into the night from airstrips that stretch and moan
Thousands of crawlers we watch make our gazes towards each other freeze like stone
You and I, we sit
The dawn filters through the trees and we kiss
The sun never shines in the daytime or keeps us warm in this soul abyss
Trapped in mist
We'll stay on these cliffs
The chill air of autumn is a Saturday review of Monday
We close our eyes and ears and hear the cars on the parkway on their winding trip
Seasons twist their romantic shows and leave their marks by the side of the road
Reaching like vines spiraling, it's everything they'll ever know
Caught between the earth and sky confused by which way to go
Traveling through gravid space, it's a hand over hand searching for some room to grow
You and I, we sit
We don't know where to turn, but we know we just can't quit
To leave this sacred ground just leads us to the same perspective shift
In your mercury-lit heaven do you find your dreams so dimly lit?
But how do you just live off bits destined to drift?
And how do you just defy the mould you comfortably fit?
And how do you justify when you can't even admit something's wrong?
How do you?
How do you do?
You and I, we sit
The world is eerily lit by sunlight
Growing up in a way to find that growing up is growing apart and on your guard
Playing so many parts
Each moment is a lifetime
Each sight makes me tremble
My mind assembles fantasies
That send me to the precipice of this towering cliff
I’m also recording three new songs. I’m getting the feeling that I want to stop doing my own music after this. It’s just too painful. It’s hard to write and writing makes me look too closely at my source of inspiration, and everything I write is borne out of pain. Every feeling I have is borne out of pain. It’s my very nature, the result of my life experience. When I laugh and make jokes, it’s all out of pain. There’s nothing I feel or am that doesn’t relate back to being in pain. If that’s all that’s in me, if that’s all that I have to express, why bother? Everyone has their own problems.
The three "new" songs from that period:
Hype Money (Not Far Enough)
Here I am, wondering what goes on
At home now I'm on my own
Out here on my own
After so many years of neglect
I wonder if it's had an effect on
Do they worry about me?
Do they know what they have done?
Do they feel any responsibility?
How do they see just what went on?
God, what went on?
Here I am, but what went on in their minds?
When their lives were gripped in distilled expectancy?
Here I am now, here I may be
But what about the time before my memory?
When I could have been anyone
Anyone I could have become
A lump of clay in trusted hands
Trusting hearts for trust in any...
It could have been anyone
Looking for questions to answers I know
And thinking of things I never would show
Rearing and raising, nurturing and aiding
What's the point if you never let them grow?
Should I tell them how they are mistaken?
Cause nothing's given when nothing's taken
Don't tell me I'm one of you
It doesn't feel like I'm one of you
What do I have to prove?
Here I am, but tell me where I should stand
Here among the distant people I call friends
Funny how they try to look like me
Seeing how they never even look at me
Should I try to be somebody?
Should I try to see what they see?
On the edge of the far periphery
Counting time in the skyline by the riverside
Counting time in the skyline by the riverside
By the riverside I touched the water
I touched the water and somebody called my name
Somebody called my name and I came alive
It's so hard to tell what to think of us
Of you, of me, of we, community
Tell me something wrong with what's in common
Between you and me, between you and me
Between you and me
I won't compromise my lifestyle
By refusing to compromise my lifestyle
Open doors after open doors
So many options on as many piles
Just because thoughts are on ink and pages
Don't think they're there for ages on ages
Though you've bled no one knows
What you meant or what you said
Here I am, but I can't figure it out
Trying to see what you're about
Means so much to me
Indigo and Grey
I've got nothing to say
And no one wants to listen to the nothing I've got to say
So I keep my mouth closed, I keep my eyes shut tight
I keep my ears plugged, and my hands out of the daylight
I don't think I wanna know the candy from home
Where the people only judge your pain by their own
They could've sent a life jacket, a cradle or a cousin
I thought it was a girlfriend, when I kissed it I found it wasn't
It could've been a maniac by the way it groveled and moaned
And the way that it asked me, "what is so important about all this flesh and bone?"
He said, "that's the way that we speak"
My attention was drawn and I turned to look
God, how I wanted to be
Be part of that scene, part of something going on
Part of someone else, part of somewhere I'd belong
Maybe I'm half dreaming, half wanting only a fantasy
But it's not enough, it's not enough, not enough
Everything keeps looking blue, but is it exactly blue?
Or is it one of the thousands of shades between indigo and grey?
Is it my imagination that leads the parade?
Like a funeral procession to its final deception
That there really is no blue, and there really is no grey
And there's really no today, tomorrow or yesterday
How can I think what I say?
It's a trick, it's a loss, it's a double-cross
It's when people ask me to stay
When I can't stand them, I stay there anyway
When I wanna kill them, they tell me it's a beautiful day
I'd really like to see them, but why can't they see me first?
They always seem to give up
So I take my .44 to prove I can make it worse
How do you learn to see the sickness?
When it always seems so absurd
This is how we speak, this is how we speak
How do we learn to be heard?
Well I see something lacking in me 'cos I'm not what I'm supposed to be
It's something to hide, and realize and brutalize and never come to terms inside
And Hollywood never had a chance it could've in a second glance
See that it wasn't good, for me, for you, and still it comes in simple words
I guess I finally blew my cover
I guess I let myself get scared
I guess with what I found, should I let myself drown?
I guess I couldn't face another round
God forbid, treating me this way is just to much in such a little space
And alcohol is something not addressed tho' I can see that I'm a mess
This isn't personal, I'm much too busy running from whatever I see coming
And it's near again to me, to you, and still it comes in simple words
I pulled my hands out of my pocket
And rolled the cuffs up on my jacket
I felt the chill of the wind
I wondered where I had been
And turned to looked for where to begin
My Room
I've got four walls and a door
Music for two and a picture of you
Sunlight and spring with winter melting
Shade from trees, a distant bell rings
2 o'clock in the early afternoon
Two plus five is being alive
When we can do whatever we want to
I want to love you the way you love me
If only these dreams could be reality
Future come faster, I'm tired of waiting
It's so cold when you're not here
And I can't hear you whisper in my ear
That there's no more to fear
Take and touch a little and not too much
Be careful with your concrete
It's only where your feet touch the ground
Be careful with your concrete
A soul poured into a shell of a man
That's all you see, that's all that I am
Do you love me for my clever company
With conversations that always seem to be
No more than a kiss in the afternoon?
Who can you trust when you near the end
And all your friends are so uncertain you have to hide?
Their friendly smiles try to conceal
Their prying eyes all in disguise
Best to stay alone
Somewhere to lay down your load
With you within my home
I've got four walls and a door
Music for two and a song for you
Sunlight and spring with winter melting
Shade from trees, a distant bell rings
A kiss from you in the early afternoon
Future addendum (recording notes):
All of these songs were recorded on a first generation Tascam PortaOne Ministudio 4-track cassette tape recorder.
The big difference for me between the tracks of the vocal re-recordings and the new recordings at the time was that for the new recordings the drums were recorded in the Oberlin Can Consortium steel drum band's panyard on our drummer's Yamaha kit with Paiste cymbals (I later turn out to be an adherent of Yamaha drums, and Paiste cymbals are also my favorite, but I don't use them because they break too easily for my style of playing).
The older "One After Another" collection drums were recorded on a cheap Remo Pre-Tuned Head Series set with ridiculously bad cymbals.
A key reason for the re-recordings was that Boss came out with a reverb stomp box that previously didn't exist. Reverb effect boxes otherwise were prohibitively expensive. The original vocals from 2 years prior didn't have any reverb, which was part of the reason they were unlistenable. As bad as the vocals are here, they were originally even worse, believe it or not.
The guitars were an Ovation that I later sold when I was trying to quit music and I think some tracks used a Guild 12-string acoustic guitar that was later irreparably broken during a "make out" session with some woman named Hiromi.
My bass guitar was a Kramer Duke headless bass that I bought during high school and it also got ruined not long after I graduated from college.
The keyboard was a Roland Juno-106 analog synthesizer that I sold years later after I went to California, which is something I regret since it is now considered a vintage synthesizer.
