Dust my broom – foto Smith

New Ball & Smith song recorded last Thursday titled Soap and Such . . . aka The Jonah Icarus Minotaur Theseus Medea Jason RobinHood Hercules Fable Table Blues.

I’ve been avoiding blogging it because it’s strange stuff, odd, offputting . . . my double-tracked vocals start off fairly horrible and slowly improve to mediocre — but after you get used to the bad, it’s not so bad.

At least the music’s good, the chorus works quite well, and the words are not your usual blues lyrics. Perhaps its authentic unsmooth non-professional unsinging will come across as endearing primitiveness . . . or not.

Here it is –> -> -> Soap and Such.

Music mix recording Peter Ball of Apartment One; vocals words Smith.

Soap and Such

Saw a cat beat a drum with her tail
Flashed on Jonah swallowing the whale
And the life in which he lived to love to fail
But someone done told that tale

Icarus flew too close to the sun
Minotaur after Theseus did run
Medea for Jason killed her son
But they’re not the only one

  But first a commercial for soap and such
  It really won’t cost you all that much
  And we need to pay for this program
  Cuz our bread and butter needs new jam

Robin Hood robbed and taxed the rich
Whose greedy palms did always itch
For larger status tents to pitch
But way too much leads to ditch

Hercules had to clean their stables
Or the gods said we will you disable
Unless that’s just another fable
And I’m sitting at the wrong table

   Again a commercial for soap and such
  It really won’t cost you all that much
  And we need to pay for this program
  Cuz our bread and butter needs some brand new jam

All these tales tell outlandish lies
Trying to answer our unsettled whys
To explain what’s above the skies
The how and why we live our lives

But there ain’t no truth to a single one
Except for the truth in having a bit of fun
Though bits of truth in each one run
Yet no final answer till this this undone

  And finally a commercial for soap and such
  It really won’t cost you all that much
  So we need to pay for this here program
  Cuz our bread and butter wants some brand new jam

— Smith, 5.10.2012

Soap n such – foto Smith

Air dance – foto Smith

Wrote this poem two weeks after mom died in 2005; added a chorus last month; recorded it this afternoon with Peter Ball.

Absolutely love Peter’s music on this one; the vocal as usual is open to critique . . . Click to play.

Death Dance

Take one crisis forward
Two disasters back
Do the death dance baby
Spin the man in black

Don’t you mind the drooling
Or the puddles on the floor
I don’t care who you’re fooling
Death destructs the poor

  For flesh sags and wrinkles
  Most muscles lose their touch
  Bad bladders burst and tinkle
  When too much to life we clutch

And way before you’re dying
You creak and crack and groan
Then comes along the diapering
The one-way ticket rest home

Where drenched in piss and TV
You’re just one more peopled pod
I tell you life ain’t easy
With or without your God

  Oh the bellies sag and wrinkle
  The muscles lose their crunch
  Old faces frown and crinkle
  And brains get out of touch

Music, mix, recording Peter Ball; words and vocal Smith.

There are forty-two more Ball & Smith songs for listening or free download at reverbnation.com/mutantsmith

Pinion pulse – Smith foto

Of the 42 Ball & Smith word/music jams online at reverbnation.com/mutantsmith, I keep 21 hidden at the bottom of the list locked in a metaphoric basement knowing no one ever listens that long so their deformities are safe.

While rooting round down there I found this from years ago, back before I began adding choruses to the poems so Peter could turn them into songier songs

This one is two poems strung together which have little to do with each other and were written 31 years apart. Every 60 seconds it becomes something different, sometimes good, sometime not, but it does builds to a nice ending, so I let it out in public on probation to see if anyone hounds it to death. . . DOING TIME – reverbnation.com/play_now/song_8051345.

Doing Time

A leaf alive
Another life
A lie let lie too long. . .

Moon meat and Moses
Sucker song along
New lie highway
Old road alone

Need new lies
Old lie don’t do
New supposes
For falling through

New excuses
And pretty parts
To hide abusive
Hollow hearts

Toys for boys
Swirls for girls
Swine to enjoy
Those hurled pearls

For Babylon baby
Ain’t another time
There ain’t no maybe
It’s this life’s the crime

And I’m doing time

– 2004

Junkie Luv

My eyes slither open, shut
In golum time my tongue
Rasps brown lizards
As I hiss my want of you
In careful solitude
O my preciousss

Sleep whispers soft leavings
On my lids my head nods
Nods my precious
These fingers numb in spite
The clash of needle
And the floor

– 1973

Music, mix, recording Peter Ball of Apartment One; words, voice me. All songs free downloads.

More Ball & Smith jams at reverbnation.com/mutantsmith.

Door do not open – Smith foto

Not in my right mine – foto Smith

Here’s some rhythmic chaos badly sung with too much enthusiasm backwards once and forward twice and forward once and backwards twice.

Jammed yesterday with Peter Ball, the Apartment One musical consortium.

I didn’t like my voice on the first try so Peter turned the track backward and used it as rhythm for our second attempt. Then we added a third track. So cut one is two tracks forward over one track backwards.

Then he reversed the whole thing so cut two is two backward tracks over one forward track. It’s rather difficult listening at first (at times unpleasant) but it all gets more rhythmically interesting as it disintegrates.

Not that I would say either is good or enjoyable. They are what they is. Different.

I liked the first version in initial playback (though not the 2nd) but absolutely intensely unequivocally hated both when I got home and listened again. I cringed. But this morning I find while both begin badly, they degenerate into a rather crude nasty sweetness.

But I could be wrong . . . it may be just the sweet sun shining through our third floor window falling on my sun-starved face.

Proufound & Lost Department: 2 forwards over 1 backward: reverbnation.com/play_now/song_12821367.

Proufound & Lost Department: 2 backwards over 1 forward: reverbnation.com/play_now/song_12821378.

ProFound & Lost Department

Trip trip trip on the trolley
Bet bet bet on the bang
World wide weird really wobbly
Everybody heading for the hang

Be glad in sadness since sadness abounds
From earth’s first flatness till tomorrow’s surround
Be spark in darkness, be kind in the rough
Lessen life’s starkness, tender the tough

   Look for the am, give thanks for the journey
   Forgive the sham and work on the worry
   Look for the sham, give thanks for the worry
   Forgive the am and work on the journey

Find silver lining, there’s joy around
To be one living, to walk higher ground
In dark of the day best make your own light
Wrest worry away, don’t beget blight

Fight for the funness, brighten the road
Promulgate oneness, lighten the load
Keep your head up as you run it all down
Go for the full cup, not collapse into clown

   Thanks for the journey and its poignant plan
   I wrestle with worry while working on am
   Thanks for the worry and its poignant am
   I wrestle with journey while working on plan

— Smith, poem 4.2011, rewritten & chorus added 4.2012

42 Ball & Smith songs available for listening or free download at reverbnation.com/MutantSmith.

Tarnished lining – foto Smith

Red hot Smith – foto Smith

Red hot? Ha! Right now I’d be happy with luke warm. Gave up coffee the first of the month and just coincidentally (I hope) stopped writing poems at the same time. Longest I’ve gone between poems in 3 years.

Not only that, but I’ve little to say, which makes daily blogging problematic. Been showing foto montages lately to try and fake folk out.

Here’s a low-key perhaps too laid back song. Took me 5 days to decide to blog it because I first listened to it on tinny laptop speakers and was horrified at how bad I sounded, but tried again with headfones and decided it was sort of okay. Certainly not going to get me on American Idle, but might get me kicked out of a karaoke bar. If nothing else it reminds me of Lee Marvin’s bad attempt at singing Wandering Star in Paint Your Wagon.

Here’s Lee . . . a blatant attempt to make me sound better by comparison: Wandering Star sorta sung by Lee Marvin

Peter Ball added a backing vocal to try to give some depth to my monotone vocal. Click here to play Zen Lessen sorta sung by Smith

Zen Lessen

Lessen Zen lesson to get where you’re going
Better cut the apple to bake the pie
Lighten your luggage in hope of enlightenment
Best break the hold of your precious pride

You learn and forget and forget to remember
Redo today what you last day did
Though yearned there is no rest before ending
No final curtain for reading last line

  The lesson is endless in lopsided lie
  Best learn that we’re all designed to fail
  Worst of the worm is this endless why
  The best is that it’s just one trail

Hocked to the yolk you’re all over uneasy
Already spent before they give you a dime
This now born of becoming tomorrow
Is sorrow for sorrow as sorrow declines

The All-is-All is, until it goes isn’t
The this of the that is the them of the those
Zen becomes then when am becomes ever
Or never whichever the whether allows

  The lesson’s unending illogical lie
  Circle work preprogrammed in frail
  The worst is worm of endless why
  The best is that it’s just one trail

Inside is outside and outside is other
The tone of the bell the shape of the stone
Easier to accept the pain of the udder
Than expect the circle to leave you alone

Either-Or more whore than moral gospel
Yes-No more damage than original sin
I choose All The Above in multiple answer
And dance at the byways as both ways I grin

– Smith, original poem 6.9.2010 rewritten as song 3.20.2012

Music, mix, backing vocal, recording by Peter Ball of Apartment One; lyrics, vocal Smith.

There are 41 Ball & Smith very odd songs available for listening and free download at reverbnation.com/mutantsmith.

Grazing in the past – foto Smith

Good day sunshine – foto Smith

Posted this song last April, in the end winter mist and cold gray Cleveland haze of never coming spring. I don’t do winters well since we missed the winters of 2006 thru 2008 and found I liked it a lot.

Couple poet people recently sent good word on it so I went back to listen and found this bouncy bit of fun with dark & droll lyrics.

Click to play Cleveland Gray.

Weather was winter 30s when I wrote it 11 months ago; this week it’s in the 70s with sun. We humans seem to have given Mother Earth a fever; I doubt we’ll like her cure.

Here are the lyrics.

Cleveland Gray

The gray glooms swoom
Over my head
Dimming my dimmer
Breaking my bread
Hurting my heart
Aching my gut
Emptying my bucket of luck

Feeling blue what do I do I gotta shake these Cleveland blues

Mom’s dead
Dad died
The homework ate my dog
My money’s fled
My President lied
He’s helping the rich instead
(big big surprise)

Feeling blue what do I do to shake this Cleveland gray?

No home heart warmth
To keep me sane
Shadowed sun forgotten sum
Jams my brain
Makes hopes a corpse
Life a pain
Of course of course

Feeling blue what do I do to shake this Cleveland gray?

Maybe get some sleep
Or take a toke
Shuck a sheep
Or shake a joke
Gonna drown in this Cleveland frown
Blue gray brown
Downtown brown

— Smith, 4-2011

39 more Ball & Smith songs at reverbnation.com/mutantsmith – all free downloads.

Music, mix and recording by Peter Ball of Apartment One; words and vocals Smith.

Recording a new number Tuesday.

Is there life after death?
Trespass here and find out
foto Smith

Defend music – don’t listen to Smith – foto Smith

Recorded a song today using a 1965 poem with a 2012 chorus. Same writer, 47 years between verse and chorus; 19 when I started, almost 66 when finished. Got to be some kind of record. Now if only I could get paid by the hour.

I’d classify this song as an urban stumblebum rhythmic blues — aka One Summer’s Sigh.

Music, mix, recording Peter Ball of Apartment One; words and voice me.

One Summer’s Sigh

Once upon one summer’s sigh
Not many tears ago
I took to bed a butterfly
And love began to grow

To follow her I sprouted wings
Full wondrous to behold
For they had many mysterious things
Entwined throughout the gold

  So I’m looking in my heart telling it to wait for me
  While stumbling in the dark for lack of better bait to be

We soared upon a silvered kiss
Flew high through emerald rays
I sipped her sated green abyss
And bled in blues the gray

We wove the autumn’s amber wave
Till sad we breathed the dread
That forms in lack of somber weave
Such is as love is led

  Looking in my heart telling it to wait for me
  Stumbling in the dark seeking better be to be

– Smith, 1965-2012

There are 40 Ball & Smith songs at reverbnation.com/mutantsmith, and I’m in the process of turning them into free downloads.

PS – I finally found my “better be to be” when Lady walked into my life 6 and a half years ago.

LovE – foto Smith

Booze – foto Smith

Was going to record a country song yesterday so I spent the night before on YouTube with Hank Williams, Kris Kristofferson, Hank Thompson, Roger Miller, Buck Owens, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Lefty Frizzell, Johnny Cash et al seeing what I could beg, borrow and steal for my own deal.

Well I should have spent time with Captain Beefheart and Dr John instead cuz for sure this ain’t no country song, least wise no country I know. Not sure what it is . . . maybe Gravel Rock.

Anyway, here’s Booze Lose Blues at reverbnation.com/play_now/song_12214737.

Music, mix and recording by Peter Ball of Apartment One; voice and words me.

Here are the lyrics; had to chop the original poem and add a chorus to make it fit. Think I like it.

Booze Lose Blues

Oh I gotta small brain, no social skill
frequently off aim, caused a lot of ill
dog’s in the pound, my gal with better fella
I totter around, trying not to teeter
but the one thing I can claim as my crown
I got the longest short term memory gap in town

The liquor cuts a whole in my pocket
while packing pounds on my frame
people whispering I’ve lost it
chasing high instead of game
and they’re right, I’m going down
on the longest short term memory gap in town

   Oh I’ve mastered the stumble in tumble and fall
   and I’m extra expert at messing it all
   but to tell you true I ain’t got no clue
   bout these back breaking booze lose blues

That thing I said that I can’t remember
came back to haunt my future en mass
my misses I cover, the rest reassemble
I stink of self and resemble an ass
my sins replicate clones of their own
in long term short memory grasp of the groan

Got holes in my knees from concrete crawling
weepy cheeks from tear beer crying
it’s hard to walk cuz I keep falling
if I said this was fun I’d be lying
but I keep losing truth like a clown
living in long time short term memory gap town

   Oh I know how to stumble and tumble and fall
   and I’m extra expert at messing it all
   but to tell you true I still got no clue
   bout breaking these booze lose blues

There are 39 Ball & Smith songs at reverbnation.com/mutantsmith.

Eveland – foto Smith

Skydance – foto Smith

Recorded an odd simple gentle ditty today with musician Peter Ball that put a smile on my face titled High Wind Whether ==> reverbnation.com/play_now/song_12074804.

High Wind Whether

The trees are dancing
Wind playing the tune
In sky tall prancing
Beneath a full moon

Clouds chant the chorus
Direction and sound
In song sung just for us
We being earth bound

Romance abounds, adventure exists
Just look around at all that you’ve missed

Our feet stuck to dirt
Our hearts leap for air
With happiness we flirt
And shirk our despair

Yes the trees are dancing
Leaping for the moon
My soul sky chancing
Laughing in loon

Music, mix, recording Peter Ball of Apartment One; words and voice me.

For 37 more Smith/Ball jams go to reverbnation.com/mutantsmith.

Apartment One – foto Smith