Saturday, August 18, 2012

"Autumn Magician" - New Song



This is only my third post about making music, as the only other two posts I can think of were about my EP, Great Western Skies, and the song I recorded with Grant called "Darling." I don't make music often (enough), but, when I do, boy-howdy, it is a hoot!

This song is called "Autumn Magician," and it'll be on the new EP I'm (very) slowly working on, tentatively titled Criminal Chants. There could be a song about women. There could be a song about dinosaurs and lasers. Who knows? Anyway, hey, here's this song I made. You can hear my dog's collar in the chorus, and, as always, disclaimer: I can't really play guitar or sing. Thumbs up.

The Story
Two years ago, I had the house to myself (and Charlie the dog) on a Saturday. Naturally, I spent the afternoon trying to play guitar, which I can only compare to an inexperienced 14-year-old trying to go all the way for the first time. I'm clumsy and hesitant when I make music, but I have so much fun doing it. I'll probably never actually invest time in it to legitimately improve my barren skills beyond "guy who mostly plays easy folk chords as fast and recklessly as he possibly can."

Anyway, it was August, and I had read Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes that summer, and I thought it was just terrific. I started drinking a good helping of Jameson and then wrote a song, from start to finish, in four hours. A lot of the lyrics were lifted from a poem I had written the month before, which was also influenced by Bradbury's tale of two boys reevaluating their thoughts on age when a mysterious carnival comes to town.

The Lyrics
"Autumn Magician"
by Jake Kilroy

Hey, autumn magician, when will the spooky winds come?
I've got questions for pagan gods
about youth, nostalgia and love,
and I'll ask them without
jokes, poetry, sarcasm, threats or irony.

Which rituals do you think involve broken hearts and lovers' blood?
What spells do we try to make ourselves in basements and backyards?

Memories are like old movies,
playing on a rusty projector
until it's just you, cold and asleep,
in the empty theater.

Think of carnivals and tattoos,
and wonder which better represents you.
You can't have both, which you probably know,
sustaining some laughter and growth.

Which rituals do you think involve broken hearts and lovers' blood?
What spells do we try to make ourselves in basements and backyards?

Surely, you've tasted the salt of summer skin,
just to spit it up after too much rum
that went straight to your new autumn head
as you were finding balance in a winter bed.

Which rituals do you think involve broken hearts and lovers' blood?
What spells do we try to make ourselves in basements and backyards?

2 comments:

E said...

I want to hear the song about dinosaurs and lasers.

Jake Kilroy said...

It COULD be about dinosaurs and lasers. But it could also be about drugs AND LASERS.