Category: Music

Silicon Sideman

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment

Silicon Sideman

The trouble with a drum machine
Is that it hasn’t got an ego,
Trouble with a drum machine
Is that it always keeps in time:
The fourth beat goes where the first three go,
As do the crash and click and chime.
Ev’ry beat created
Is so beautifully weighted
And it comes along precisely
When a beat’s anticipated.
Yes, some settings let it swing
(In a very predictable way),
But at its heart, it can only play
As its programming dictates –
It has no art in how it syncopates.
From the moment we press start,
It serves up static jazz and bluesless blues
At gridline rates –
And despite what the singer would choose.
It can’t insist on using toms or gates.
However loud, however smart,
It never tries to build its part,
With never a roll and never a fill –
It just keeps beating,
Beat-beat-beating,
Beating on and on until
At last the plug is pulled, the button pushed,
The damn thing overruled and hushed,
And finally each tireless brush and stick is still.
The trouble with a drum machine
From marching boys to charging pop,
Is knowing when to make a noise,
And knowing when to stop.

The Merchantman Shanty

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
detail from Moonlight over the Bosphorus by Edward Hoyer

The Merchantman Shanty

“Work songs were banned in the Royal Navy.”

– Capt A. Bakalarka

I used to sail with the king, I sailed
On a Royal Naval brig,
But there they wouldn’t let me sing
Whene’er we raised the rig

     So we hauled away in silence so,
     We had to heave without a ho,
     We dare not peep a quick-quick-slow
     Or the cat would make us holler.

We mayn’t disturb his majesty
     With a too-rye-ay and a yo-ho-ho,
For only lubbers sing at sea
     So let all singing go.

I used to sail with the king, I sailed
On a Royal Naval sloop,
But I couldn’t let my whistle ring
Whene’er we swabbed the stoop.

     So we scrubbed away in silence, see,
     We had to dumb without a dee,
     We dare not hum a do-re-mi,
     Or the cat would make us holler.

We mayn’t disturb his majesty
     With a too-rye-ay and a yo-ho-ho,
For only madmen sing at sea
     So keep your whistle’ing low.

I used to sail with the king, I sailed
On a Royal Naval barque,
But I must not pluck a single string
Till safely after dark.

     So we sailed away in silence, aye,
     We had to hew without a cry,
     Unless the roaring wind was high
     And the cat can’t hear us holler.

We mayn’t disturb his majesty
     With a too-rye-ay and a yo-ho-ho,
For only sirens sing at sea
     So take your singing below.

The lines in roman are sung by the shanty man, the lines in italics are sung by the crew.

I originally had the line “Whene’er we swabbed the poop”, referring to the poop-deck, but…well, you’ve already sniggered, haven’t you ?  So I changed it to ‘stoop’, which sounds like it should be a suitably nautical word even though it isn’t. It’s actually the American term for the front steps upto the front door of a terraced house, often spanning over the area.  But then, boats have attached ladders upto the poop-deck, don’t they?

Soundtrack to the Revolution

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment

Soundtrack to the Revolution

Say you want a revolution ?
You wanna be a street-fighting man,
Raging hard against the masterplan ?
But violence is no solution –
However much the Man is to blame,
You’ll never beat him by killing in the name.

We won’t be televised
On Sunday bloody Sunday, between the barricades,
Or meeting with the new boss to lead the black parade.
You wanna be mobilized
By standing in the way of control
As the Eton Rifles take their bloody toll ?

You wanna fight the power ?
Then let the records turn turn turn –
For we are the Antichrist to make ears burn.
Cometh the finest hour,
Then lock up the guns & ammo – it’s clear
That we’ve gotta sing our way through here.

Fernando, can you hear the drums,
Rocking the free world, rocking the casbah –
Let’s sing for a year that we’re dreaming after,
Until the reckoning comes –
And the lost cause chord at last gives birth.
To give peace a chance, for what it’s worth.

The Critic’s Lament

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
detail from The Art Critic by Norman Rockwell

The Critic’s Lament

If you don’t like this then you’re a moron,
If you do like that then you’re a lout,
If you’d rather t’other, then I guess you’re on your own –
For even when the way is shown,
You’d rather do without.

If you don’t like this then you’re a cretin,
If you do like that then you’re a square –
Yet now, for all my years of selfless vetting of the muse,
So you masses never have to choose,
It’s like you just don’t care…

How can you reject my spotless taste
In favour of your own ?
Or let my perfect wisdom go to waste
Despite my megaphone ?
For who will sing the praises of the chosen
That they’ve scarcely earned,
And who will prick the egos of the posers
Once their backs are turned ?

So if you don’t like this then you’re a heathen,
And if you do like that, you’re thick as planks –
For I alone am high priest to this seething sea of stars,
I’m crushing dreams, inflicting scars –
Yet still I get no thanks !

Acid Verse

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment

Acid Verse

Lis’ning to psychedelic music,
Joss stick sending up a stream,
Lava shadows on the ceiling,
Red wine drifting off to dream.

Don’t need drugs to taste the acid,
Just an over-yellow mind –
It’s gonna be one of those fitful nights
When the gears of my conscious grind.

Too much psychedelia,
It’s not from the drugs, this trance, though –
I swear, just wine, and a lack of coffee,
So why do the colours dance so ?

I guess that I must be dreaming ?
I really hope that I’m dreaming…
Cos if this is really psychotrope
Then I’m trapped inside a kaleidoscope.

I guess there are folks who deal with this ev’ry day –
Does it make me a bad person to say
That I never wanted to end up that way ?
Like this way.  Like slipping down the slope.

Lis’ning to psychedelic noodling –
Are they slurred, or only me ?
It sorta sounds like forty-fives
That are played at thirty-three.

Don’t need drugs to hear the acid
Needle jumping, stuck on repeat –
It’s gonna be one of those Mobius nights
When Alice can’t find her feet.

Too much recycled diorama,
But if not drugs, then what have I taken ?
If only I’d swallowed some bloody caffeine
Cos I need to reawaken.

So why am I still here dreaming ?
Or what if I’m not here dreaming ?
It’s not any pills from off the shelf,
But maybe my brain has brewed some itself ?

Maybe it’s cloning its own serotonin all day,
Or morphing endorphins to help it to play.
Or doped-up on dopamine, drooling away ?
Who’s to say ?  Is it madness by stealth ?

Lis’ning to psychedelic mumbling,
Are they blurry ?  Hard to see…
This cover art is always changing –
Which side’s A and which side’s B ?

Don’t need drugs to see the acid
Sparking somewhere, distant, bleak –
It’s gonna be one of those unplugged nights
When the doors of perception creak.

Too much psyched-out sepia –
I don’t even own a secret stash,
But these uninvited thoughts wanna dance,
Now this party’s about to crash.

Can I still hope I’m nothing but dreaming ?
I gonna need help if I find I’m not dreaming
Cos I just don’t know how I’m gonna survive
If I’m right here awake and I’m streaming this live.

I don’t want to crash, but I don’t want to stay,
So help me to crash to an overcast day –
Cos there’s so many colours, I can’t find my way –
Help me, pray, when the DTs arrive.

Lis’ning to spaced-out psychic music,
Sometimes my mind is not my friend,
Cos psychedelic may sound angelic,
But it’s based on the blues in the end.

Pump Up, Soak In, Churn Out

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment

Pump Up, Soak In, Churn Out

Ev’ry time we turn the music on
And spin that single, dream that dream,
We’re really lis’ning to the Man.
For ev’ry time we place that needle,
Fire that laser, hit that stream,
We’re all just following the Plan.

Rock & roll ain’t noise pollution,
But it sure is toxic waste
To manufacture vinyl, drop by drop.
And digital is nothing without phones,
Upgraded in a haste –
The beat goes on, the beat must never stop.

The constant chemicals that we abuse
Ain’t pills and coke,
They’re plastic pop and heavy metal ores.
For all our music’s rock-music in the end,
To burn and smoke –
We’re so unhip, we groove to dinosaurs.

And where is all this power from to fight the power ?
Nukes and coal.
Our phones get fat while the rainforest gets thinned.
How can we let the sunshine in
To let the records roll ?
The answer, dudes, is blowing in the wind.

Too Fast

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment

Too Fast

Pop tunes reckon that they haven’t got long,
So they splash their chorus in the first few bars –
They’re terrified of the fingers that skip,
They’ve got no time to take a trip.
The ear-economy for any song
Must reach us in shops and lobbies and cars –
There’s no slow build-up any more,
Just one-two-three, then four-to-the-floor.

Static

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Photo by SplitShire on Pexels.com

Static

Ev’ry hour on ev’ry radio,
On ev’ry station, Beatles, Bach or Blues –
Upon the hour, come what may,
They force on us the news.

We come here for the music,
But we have to hear the gossip and the noise.
And even worse, the traffic, sport and weather –
What a buzzkill, boys !

And in an hour, then up it pops again –
Just the same with nothing changed, just comfort food.
Headlines full of factoids – got no time,
Yet long enough to wreck the mood.

I don’t mind DJ chat –
At least a human’s in the process somewhere –
But this sounds like an algorithm
Padding out the wavelengths, filling up the air.

Well I’m no luddites, I can read the papers –
Keep abreast as best I can.
I don’t need constant interruptions
Thinking I’ve got no attention span.

Give me a station full of talking,
But let’s keep the others where the music never stops –
No news is good news, so save it for the Albert Hall –
And the top of the hour for the top of the pops.

Sheep Mayn’t Safely Graze

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Photo by Nick Bondarev on Pexels.com

Sheep Mayn’t Safely Graze

We rack them out between bridges and nuts,
And crank till they must reply.
And those low, low throbs that we feel in our guts –
Well, the sheep feel them too, by-and-by.
But it’s never their bleats or their baas that are scored,
It’s never their voices that sing from each chord,
And it’s never their own requiem we applaud.
In life and in death, so their tension will always be high.

How many hundreds of thousands of sheep
Have our symphonies dispatched ?
Every cello has reason to weep,
And scream as its sinews are scratched.
How many flocks must we cull to the muse ?
How many sacrificed lambkins and ewes ?
On the altar of Bach shall their entrails ooze.
They live for this music, but always do strings come attached.

Hickory Sticks

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
broken drumstick close up dark dirty
Photo by abednego ago on Pexels.com

Hickory Sticks

        A-Side
Why do I hate Phil Collins ?
Well, I try not to hate anymore
But why do I so dislike Phil Collins ?
Do I ?  I’m not so sure.
I still think Air Tonight is a classic,
At least, till the kit kicks in –
The rest, I mostly could leave ’em,
But if you dig ’em, I guess you win.

No, the reason I hate…no, never hate,
But maybe biting my thumbs,
Is all because he single-handed killed the 80s
With his drums –
His thudding, crushing, reverb-hushing,
Stop-and-starty gated drums !
His all-commanding, corp’rate-branding,
Undecaying zombie drums !

It’s not all of Phil Collins’s fault, of course,
He only rubbed the lamp,
And soon the genius was loose
To spread itself through desk and amp –
Producers loved its soulless beats
That never swing or soothe,
And ev’ry engineer beheld
The emperor’s new groove.

It took us all the decade to wake up,
Ten years too late,
To suss the subtleties we’d lost
When drumskins don’t vibrate.
How many tunes that now sound dated,
Could instead have sounded great ?
So this is why I curse Phil Collins –
Cos he opened up the gate !

        B-Side
But what do I know, and what does he care ?
He’s loved by thousands ev’ry day –
So he’s the famous millionaire,
And I’m just the whinging, self-smug square
Who cannot even play.
So I don’t like his drums ?  So what ?
Is that the best I’ve got
To think that I can moan away ?

You know what I hate about Phil Collins ?
I hate how he makes me hate.
How all of my petty ugliness
Is rising to the bait.
He lets me let myself off the hook
And lets my mouth run free –
As if my taste is the only taste,
And I dare you to disagree.

So sing it, Phil !
Sing it inspite of me,
Sing it to frighten me
Out of my combative them-and-us cry.
Ignore my stridency,
Forgive my overkill,
Try to enlighten me –
Live and let live till we die.

I guess this is where the toms come in,
The final chorus beckons, I see.
Could we just let them ring out for once, do you reckon,
Just for me ?
Ungate my heart, take me out of the 80s,
And into a decade of long decay –
Or else let’s part, and never be haters.
Bang the drum – not fade away.