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GLASS BREAK DEMENTIA - track 14 - "Sweetest Day"

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Another in the holiday calendar series, this is of and for Kerry my sweetest. Not so afraid of love songs after all, I guess.

Sweetest Day

On one 3rd Saturday of October
the candy came to those with none
A generous spirit trumped being sober
And Sweetest Day had just begun.

This is the 15th day of July
New message here, a bell has rung
It's a sweet day to become your new guy
My sweetest days have just begun

I was sure I would never do this again
And I was wrong and I am blessed
So let's go out and pay for some Piper
'Cause I knelt down and you said "yes"...

...on the 26th of September
A new ring for the prize I've won
This is the sweetest day I remember
My sweetest days have just begun

I was sure I would never do this again
And I am blessed to be so wrong
One year and three days have gone flying
now arm in arm we two go on

So on the 29th of September
We wed by a red sleepy sun
This is the sweetest day, but remember
Our sweetest days have just begun

This is the 3rd day of December
Another new song newly sung
This is the sweetest day I remember;
the next sweet day is soon begun.

GLASS BREAK DEMENTIA - track 13 - "Hip Bones"

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

In those dark pre-Christina-Hendricks-on-MAD-MEN days of 2006, I spat this song out of frustration with a culture that seemed to be literally starving out a generation of the young and talented. But... a straight guy ranting about female body image issues in pop culture is automatically suspect, isn't it? Also, I probably should've known better than to go topical about young Hollywood -- the references date the song immediately. Hopefully it's taken in the spirit it's given: that real women are awesome just like they are; that it's sick to tell your society that starvation is the standard of beauty; and that if one is what one eats, being frightened to eat says frightening things about what one's been emotionally fed. (P.S.: at one point, I wanted to invent a character named Emaciation Jones. Dibs.)

Hip Bones

I'm sick of looking at your hip bones --
at every actress / model / heiress
who takes her orders straight from Paris...
When will the industry please spare us
their emaciation jones?
I'm sick of looking at your hip bones.

I'm sick of looking at your hip bones --
as every waify, strafey richie
goes blase' goosestep-strutting, which we
choose to misread as fierce or bitchy,
not misguided, tragic clones
I'm sick of looking at your hip bones.

I'm sick of looking at your hip bones --
Kiera, we dream about you nightly,
but oh, your skeleton's unsightly
atop a pirate ship of fright; we
would fill your treasured chest with scones.
I'm sick of looking at your hip bones.

What did a burger ever do to you?
What did a pizza ever do to you?
What did a french fry ever do to you?
What the hell did your parents do to you?
How can our culture keep on killing you?

I'm sick of looking at your hip bones.
I guess it started back with Twiggy,
but she's a long way since "Shindig;" she
might be size 6 – is that now piggy?
Lay off the Botox, all you crones,
And get some marrow in your hip bones.

GLASS BREAK DEMENTIA - track 12 - "32"

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The 32nd piece I worked on with my digital 16-track is an instrumental using the Moog MG-1 into the Boss GT-3 "riff" setting, while also recording a raging thunderstorm through the window. "32" is also the title because of a reference dating back to the first band I was in during college (Gordian Knot). Our drummer, Steven Cherry, wrote a beautiful lyric about space and titled it "32" because 32 is the ASCII numerical code for a single space. I set that to music (which is completely unrelated to this "32"). Since this current piece is also spacey in nature, the fact that it was "Song32" on the 16-track display was too good a coincidence to pass up.

GLASS BREAK DEMENTIA - track 11 - "Water From A Bourbon Glass"

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

This song came quickly and in a single piece, as if straight from the hangover of Athena. For those of you that don't like puns, here are some puns... with booze!

____________________________

Water From a Bourbon Glass

Over, hung over
Well, I'm over whether I was hung last night
The case is packed
She may be stacked, but stocks have sunk
Over, hung over
but the doggy hair might hold me til tonight
and so I think
it's time the drink & I got drunk

it all floats up from my disturbin' past
I'm drinking water from a bourbon glass

Water, need water --
well, I need it 'cause of all the rot last night
as glass gets stains,
the memory wanes, the wax is mess
Memory, sweet memory,
I watch you wash away and wash away last night
Kentucky fried
burn to one side, burn nonetheless

no southern comforts for my urban ass
I'm drinking water from a bourbon glass

Jim and Basil, and Old Weller
give four roses to this feller
Elijah, Evan, Ezra, Elmer, Sam
Another plan that I may botch
but something no one else can scotch
so trace the buffalo, who gives a damn?

Water, sweet water --
well, it's sweet because of what I had last night
The wheat was high
Some jokes were wry but most were corn
Water, sweet water --
comfort me after the way I got last night
I found the note
that's all she wrote, a death reborn

but there's one last thing that I've gotta ask:
was that her bourbon in my water glass?

GLASS BREAK DEMENTIA - track 10 - "Break"

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

"Break" is another in a long line of cases where a lyric gimmick tricks me into revealing my state of mind. I'm grateful that I'm still this subconsciously gullible after 23 years of writing songs -- many of my favorites have come out of this kind of origin.

In this case, it's simply that that the word 'break' is a sharp percussive call all on its own as well as being part of a variety of common expressions, leading me to try shoehorning as many of them in one song as possible.

In the end, it turned into a rather forceful pep talk to myself, a mirror held up with reminders of breaks past (both interpersonal and psychotic).

The verse riff and melody appeared in a dream on 12 September 2009. Two days later, I premiered the song as an acoustic number at the Flossmoor Station Brewing Company.

Break

One day I found that I'd wasted all
the terrible things in my mind
So I looked around and replaced it all
with whatever else I could find
I started trying to taste it all,
the love and the food and the drink
But nothing could nourish the place that all
the guilt filled right up to the brink

But it felt like enough
I began to feel tough
Until the break

Free to no longer be chaste at all
I tried to run all amok
Shocked that I didn't get maced at all
I only managed a fa-fa-fafa-fa...
I thought I'd only debase it all
-- like cold eyes had lectured me once,
as if I had used no toothpaste at all --
at hedonism, I'm a dunce.

Why can't it be enough
to fall headlong in love
and take a break?

break out
break in
break glass
break wind
break fast
break up
break down
break

Pointlessly pumped up the pace, did all
the things that they told me to do,
And still I could never have braced it all
enough that it wouldn't fall through
As much as I thought I'd erased it all,
the pencil smudge won't disappear
So I guess it's time that I faced it all
to lose my illusion of fear

Self-hate's long past its shelf
date, so I'll give myself
a fucking break.

-- Dolph L. Chaney, 12th Sept 2009, 8:30am (music for the verse arrived in a dream); 13th Sept 2009, 6:06pm; 14th Sept 2009, 7:05pm

GLASS BREAK DEMENTIA - track 9 - "Ms. Papathanassiou"

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

This song started when I realized I'd never written a song that prominently featured me singing "ooooooo." So I decided I would, and what would be good to rhyme with "ooooo"? "Papathanassiou," the surname of Aphrodite's Child keyboardist, Jon Anderson collaborator, oh and Oscar-winning composer Vangelis. While I'm at it, why not also the birthname of Yusuf Islam, before he was Cat Stevens -- Steven Dimitri Georgiou? Then, I asked myself, what else is Greek in my mind? Alex Karras (hence Papadapoulos). Also, Indianapolis -- home of the Butler University Bulldogs and beloved town of my upbringing.

This song is a trifle. I file it alongside "Going Steady" from CLIMBING MOUNTAIN TIME -- tiny little flighty songs that were more fun during writing than at any other time. But sometimes those are the ones that listeners like the most, so who knows...

------------------------------

When you say "it's all Greek to me",
I know what you mean, and then
I think you won't talk to me
unless I'm Athenian

Ooooooooooo
Ms. Papathanassiou
I just don't know what to do
but I want you
Ms. Papathanassiou

I'm just a grecophile Anglo kid
from Indianapolis
I wish to Zeus my last name
was Papadapoulos

Ooooooooooo
Ms. Papathanassiou
I sure haven't got a clue
but I want you
Ms. Papathanassiou

I bet you get this all the time --
are you related to Vangelis?
And when Chariots of Fire came out,
did you go to Los Angeles?

Ooooooooooo
Ms. Papathanassiou
I'm no Steven Georgiou
but I want you
Ms. Papathanassiou

8/28/06
1/18/09

GLASS BREAK DEMENTIA - track 8 - "41"

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Drum solo!!! Err, not really, just a beat that I never ended up using for anything else, repurposed as a transition to "side 2" of the album. In my dreams, this will end up sampled and tweezed by some famous rapper and I'll make $41 dollars in royalties.

GLASS BREAK DEMENTIA - track 7 - "Thanksgiving"

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

I've been writing songs about various holidays for many years -- some day it's likely that my Greatest Hits album will be a calendar...

This is the first song I've ever written starting from a Facebook status update. "Dolph Chaney has a big bird brining in a bucket." (Which I did -- a 21-pounder to feed us and the in-laws.) As soon as I wrote that, I started bopping all around the house saying "big bird brining in a bucket" to myself, and in less time than it takes to make a pot of gravy I had the song.

______________________

Thanksgiving

Got a big bird brining in a bucket

And I'm thankful that I do

Got a safe house sitting in a suburb

And I'm thankful that I do

But mostly

I thank you

for you

Got rutabagers, taters and tomaters

And I'm thankful that I do

Got a good dog giving me her belly

And I'm thankful that I do

But mostly

I thank you

for you

Got cranberries cryin' in the crisper

And I'm thankful that I do

Got kittycats curlin' up and cuddlin'

And I'm thankful that I do

But mostly

I thank you

for you

Got a fine funny fun-filled family

And I'm thankful that I do

Got a beauty love calls me her bucket

So I’ll take the turkey from the bucket, give it to the bucket

And be thankful that I do

- Dolph L. Chaney, 25^th November 2009

GLASS BREAK DEMENTIA - track 6 - "So Where Were The Spiders?"

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Here's me trying to laugh through my anxiety attacks. Most of my immediate family has dealt with anxiety disorders; I've fought them since I was 13. At the most anxious periods in my life, I have experienced hallucinations, many involving spiders. This is not hypnogogic / hypnopompic, which occur during sleep or awakening -- this was during regular daily activities.

During a particularly tough stretch in 2002-2003, I was rather frequently hallucinating that the people around me were turning into person-sized spiders, wearing clothes, often driving oncoming cars. One day after such an episode, Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" came up on shuffle play, and after David sang the line that became this song's title, I laughed. A lot. For several minutes. Where WEREN'T the spiders? So I started writing a list of where the spiders were.

I wrote the chorus/turnaround in '09 to finish it.

_________

SO WHERE WERE THE SPIDERS?

In my chair

In my hair

I see spiders everywhere

On my door-

Knobs and floor

I freak out like a crackwhore

Super-big

Dancing jigs

Even as they write “Some Pig”

I don’t like the way

They trap their prey

In the webs of lies they say

‘Cause it reminds me of you…

In my place

In my face

On some album art by Space

Drunk in bars

Driving cars

(that’s how they got here from Mars)

In my dreams

Sewing seams

Plotting deaths and graves and schemes

I don’t like the way

They wrap their prey

In the webs of lies they say

‘Cause it reminds me of you…

At the mall

On my wall

Crawling up towards my left ball

On my toe

In my fro

Right by my office window

In my veal

As I squeal

Who cares if they are not real?

I don’t like the way

They poison their prey

With the venomous lies they say

‘Cause it reminds me of you…

GLASS BREAK DEMENTIA - track 5 - "Afraid Of Love Songs"

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

It started as a joke. I just couldn't resist the idea of singing a love song about refusing to sing love songs because of love-song phobia. Then I fleshed it out with references to other phobias and superstitions, and in final form it's about the superstitions people add to romance.

My wife says this is my "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."

------------

I've always been afraid of love songs.
Like a camera to a tribesman,
I would rather turn down bribes than
steal the soul of this love.

So you'll just have to get used to the fact that
I'm never gonna sing the words 'I love you'
I'll have to find another way to tell you
and compel you to my arms
and though I know that rhymes with 'charms'
I won't
'cause I've always been afraid of love songs.

I tread with extra care near love songs.
I don't want to be the one to
make the terminal affront to
break the back of this love.

So you'll just have to get used to the fact that
I'm never gonna sing the words 'I love you'
I'll have to find another way to tell you
and impel you to my side
and though I know that rhymes with 'bride'
I won't
'cause I've always been afraid of love songs.

I've always been afraid of love songs.
Like a hammer to a mirror
If I shatter, trapped in fear or
loathing if I break this love

So you'll just have to get used to the fact that
I'm never gonna sing the words 'I love you'
I'll have to find another way to tell you
and propel you next to me
and though that rhymes with 'sexually'
I won't
'cause I've always been afraid of love songs.

I'm never gonna sing the words 'I love you'
'cause I've always been afraid of love songs.