Most of the Rest of My Pop Songs

Thanks to a wonderful friend of mine, a really kind Dutch woman named Gerda Hovius, I finally have access to most of the rest of the pop song recordings I published on the Jamendo website, where for some reason I cannot listen to or download them. She, having access to the Luxembourg website, emailed the recordings to me, so I could download them and post them on another music site called SoundClick. Thanks a million, Gerda!

On Jamendo, I had posted these songs in albums by the names of The Human Element, Meeting Places, and Infinite Ocean. There are only five songs I need to have emailed to me: “Meeting Place,” “Better,” “‘Til Divorce Do Us Part,” and “Lethargy,” from Meeting Places; and “Moonlit Strolls,” from Infinite Ocean.

In my previous posts, My Classical Music Compositions and Some Pop Songs I Wrote, I discussed all the other music I saved from Jamendo, music which can be found on SoundCloud, MixCloud, ReverbNation, and Jango (“Let Me Come In”). Now, all my pop songs–except, for now, the five mentioned in the previous paragraph–can be found on my page on SoundClick.

On all these pop song recordings, I sang all the vocals, played all the instruments, and did all the recording, mixing, and mastering. Please, Dear Reader and Listener…don’t hold this against me.

I’ll discuss these newly-saved songs in the order in which they appear on those three Jamendo albums. After “Let Me Come In,” the first track off my first pop album, The Human Element, came the song, “Resilient.” Like the song before it, “Resilient” has a synth/electronic drum background. It’s a song about being determined at self-improvement, despite the discouraging words I heard from my family and from classmates when I was a kid.

“Grateful” is the first of a number of songs in which I, trying to find a distinctive sound, experimented with the influence of Balinese gamelan music. Instead of using the Indonesian metallophones, however, I used synthetic imitations, which I played on the keyboard, of xylophone, marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel, and tubular bells. Instead of bass and drums, I used a synthetic bassoon sound and played bongoes.

Unfortunately, when I recorded the songs for the first two albums, I didn’t really know what I was doing, as far as mixing and mastering is concerned (I was particularly clueless about compression); what’s worse, I no longer have the original master recordings (for reasons I won’t go into), so I can’t go back to them and correct my mistakes. What you hear is what you get, I’m afraid. I just hope, Dear Reader and Listener, that you’ll be patient and indulgent of the recordings’ many imperfections.

I didn’t mix my lead vocal track of “Grateful” well, so you’ll have difficulty making out the lyrics (except for the chorus and bridge, maybe); the song page has the lyrics printed out, though. Anyway, the song expresses my gratitude for being able to leave Canada and find work in East Asia, and for finding the woman I love and am married to. I’m doubly grateful for having distanced myself from my emotionally abusive Canadian family.

“Freedom” is also about my gratitude in getting away from that abusive family, and it also has the gamelan-influenced sound, though it’s a more energetic song than “Grateful.” It is also inspired musically by King Crimson‘s “Thela Hun Ginjeet,” and it has a bassoon sound instead of bass, bongoes instead of drums, and Chinese temple blocks which I played in a 5/4 cross-rhythm to the 4/4 of the rest of the instrumentation.

“Life Is a Dream (This Naïve Spell)” is a Latin-jazz tune composed at the acoustic guitar, similar to “Without You With Me.” Lyrically, it’s about the foolishness of idealistic dreaming about a perfect world. It’s mostly in 4/4 time, with a brief passage of two bars in 5/4 after each verse, the first bar being a fast single-note run on the guitar (doubled on the piano), and the second bar being harmonics (and electric piano).

The last two songs on The Human Element are “I Lie Alone” and “She Was a Funky Girl,” both of which I described on my previous post about my songs. So this leads me to a discussion of the songs on my second pop album (and my personal favourite, despite its imperfect mixing and mastering), Meeting Places.

The first track on that album was the electronic dance song, “Blow” (discussed previously), and the second track was “Meeting Place,” which as I mentioned above, I don’t have downloaded yet. This leads me to a discussion of the third track, “Regrets?“

This song also has the gamelan-influenced sound, but it’s also inspired by a live version of “Once In a Lifetime,” by The Talking Heads. The tuned percussion sounds are in 6/8 time, in a cross-rhythm against the 4/4 played by the rest of the instrumentation (vocals, electric guitar, bassoon sound, recorders, harmonica, and percussion).

“Regrets?” is about the conflict that often exists between conservative parents, who want their kids to get high-paying jobs, and their kids, who’d rather pursue their dreams and become, for example, professional musicians. Where are the regrets–in being financially successful, but suffering in a soul-crushing, conformist job; or in being poor, but artistically fulfilled?

After “Better,” “‘Til Divorce Do Us Part,” and “Lethargy” (none of which I’ve downloaded yet) comes “Blues for the Abused,” a blues/jazz song I composed at the acoustic guitar, which is about my mourning over not having the loving family I needed as a child. The opening and ending chord progressions were inspired by Django Reinhardt‘s closing chord progression on “Souvenirs,” and the body of the song is inspired by a combination of Robert Johnson blues and the Queen song “Dreamer’s Ball.”

“She Moves Me” is a love song I wrote for my wife. It’s partly inspired by the Queen song “She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettos),” and was composed at the acoustic guitar. I wish I’d sung it better, to be perfectly frank; I overdid the vibrato, making my pitch wobbly and unstable in the bass range.

“Invasion of the Bodysnatchers” is about the exploitative internet porn business. In F-sharp major, it’s musically inspired by the Wham! song “Everything She Wants,” and Queen’s “Body Language.”

My third pop album, Infinite Ocean, opened with the naughty dance song, “Lucille,” followed by the more serious “Angelic Devils” (both songs were discussed in my previous post). After that came the album’s title track, which of course inspired the name of my blog.

The song has the gamelan-inspired tuned percussion sounds again, playing notes that ascend and descend, like the waves of the ocean. Recorders are played in 4/4, and the bassoon sound is in 5/8. These winds play pairs of rising and falling notes, also like the waves of the ocean. Their conflicting cross-rhythms are meant to symbolize cycles of life that each have different durations.

A high-pitched two-note phrase I played on an ocarina (an instrument I haven’t a prayer of mastering!) is heard during the chorus. I played a classical guitar during the bridge, and I did an electronic piano solo at the end.

The song is about the Brahman-like, pantheistic All that is the unity of the universe. The waves of the ocean, crests and troughs representing the thesis and negation of the material dialectic (the rising and falling representing the sublation), symbolizes the flowing back and forth of yin and yang.

“My Cold Heart” was composed at the electric guitar, the 7/8 strumming of seventh chords in which thirds alternate with seconds (or ninths, if you prefer). The opening and middle instrumental sections have saxophone sounds playing a melody over paralleled minor seventh chords. The song is about my feelings of alienation from other people, brought on by the emotional abuse I suffered as a child. I wish I could be close to others, but I can’t.

“Tribal Victory March” is a song whose lyrics express my anti-war sentiment ironically through the perspective of the leader of the victorious tribe (understood as a metaphor for any imperialist government of today). He says his army has vanquished “all of my,…our foes” (that was no error in my singing). The leader, or demagogue, representative of any president of today’s world (Bush, Obama, Trump, whoever you like), celebrates the violence and rape inflicted on an enemy he deems to be his nation’s enemy, rather than only his own and that of the ruling class. His people slavishly repeat his words, since they’re unable or unwilling to think for themselves.

Musically, the song was inspired by an African recording of a solo male voice alternating with a group of singers repeating his words; the singing is followed by the sound of a plethora of horns over a pounding rhythm. My song imitates these musical ideas in principle, but with my own harmonies (based on equal octave divisions [whole tone scale, octatonic scale, augmented triad, and the tritone], as in a number of my classical music compositions), my soloing on an acoustic guitar and on a recorder (in a whole tone scale).

“The Happy Song” is probably my least successful song. I’m not happy with my singing on it (I’m bordering on, if not lapsing into, straining). I also attempt a scat-singing vocal solo that I’m not 100% sure of. Apart from that, the song imitates a 1930s/1940s jazz style, and it preaches a philosophy of happiness I don’t think I’ve practiced in any capacity. I include the recording here only for the sake of completeness, and I hope, Dear Reader and (at your own risk!) Listener, you’ll be kind in your judgement of it.

After “Moonlit Strolls,” the last of the five not-yet-downloaded songs, comes “Nothing to Fear,” which is musically influenced by soft, slow gamelan music, and is lyrically influenced by the quasi-Hindu mysticism of “Infinite Ocean.”

“I’m Hip” is the one straightforward rock song I’ve recorded. I’m affecting a rock singer’s voice here, though I’m not sure if I succeeded. I back this up musically with distorted electric rhythm and lead guitars, harmonica, and bass and drum sounds I played on a keyboard. Lyrically, the song is about my escape from the mental imprisonment of my emotionally abusive past, so I need no longer think of myself as ‘less cool’ than other people.

Anyway, that’s all for now, musically speaking. If I can get someone to email me those other five songs, which I consider to be among the better ones, I’ll write up a blog post featuring them, with the recordings published (presumably) on SoundClick.