After I was unable to attend Ben Broening's
Third Practice '05
festival because I was recovering from (apparently) Legionnaires Disease,
I decided to go ahead and do a "studio" version of the piece. A lot
of the piano processing, including the snazzy harmonic-glissandos at
the beginning, were done with simple programs I wrote to operate
on data from Michael Klingbeil's wonderful
SPEAR
analysis/resynthesis program. I used some of these programs
as the basis for the last few weeks of my Computer Music I
graduate seminar (Fall 2005) -- you might be able to find them
on-line by scanning through the old class pages at the
CMC courses
web site.
I've really been enjoying doing these 'laptop folk' pieces, even
though I suspect(!) I'm not the great singer-songwriter I'm pretending
to be :-). I realized that I've been extraordinarily lucky in that
I can do pretty much whatever kind of music I'd like to do as part
of my job at Columbia, so I figured I might as well do music that
my family and friends might enjoy. Me too!
The words:
V1
across the clearing, alone in the glade
are you hungry? are you sleeping?
next to the water, standing still in the shade
are you angry? are you weeping?
if only you had told what you were thinking
if only I had acted on our dreams
CHORUS
We were gods once
on top of the world
we had a cause once
someone to hold
what kind of place is this?
what kind of plan is this?
V2
I heard the warnings, you saw them too
did I say it? did you listen?
they tried to tell us, we pretended we knew
did I show it? did you miss them?
if only we had listened to them this time
if only life was something we could store
CHORUS
We were gods once
In charge of the world
we had a cause once
something to hold
what kind of life is this?
what kind of love is this?
V3
the light is sinking, the waters recede
all alone now. are you happy?
now time is fading, the end you can see
all alone now. are you empty?
our history... dissolves
we no longer have time
CHORUS
We were gods once
in control of the world
we had a cause once
someplace to go
what kind of death is this?
what kind of death is this?