Say My People (Mellow Mix)

mp3

Notes: Alright I admit it, the tracking on this was done a couple weeks before I came to CCRMA. I mixed the Mellow Mix down early because I needed to provide audio for this poem to be published in text and audio form in a publication called Breath And Shadow.

Next I added drums by Gabe Turow. We recorded them in the main CCRMA studio. I used some EV mic on the kick, the shure drum mics for toms, 2 57s (top and bottom) on the snare, and I think two Audio Technicas for overhead stereo pair (I struggle to remember I struggle!) and a dynamic of some sort on the hat.

In the mix, I took a small section of just the kick snare and hat and threw it in four measures early, on four different, quite dry tracks, for a feeble little drum intro, and then they really kick in. I've been taking the bottom and top snare mics and panning them right-left, which is interesting, so I did that. Some eq and reverb, compress the snares a little, and you have what we hear here. The drum sound is kind of thick but sometimes I worry that it treads the line of muddy.

Can you hear Eric's (aka dominguez) DAMN watch beep at the beginning? I left it in, I don't know why.

Lyrics:

say my people
do you draw enough breath?

say I'm travellin'
through the desert with death
he is leading me home to you

grim's filty finicky fingers grip me close
he is bringing me home
bringing me back through
deathly, darkly, hardly breathing energy this synergy
the source of this energy is spinning off these 40 random planets and I
miss you.

I miss your festive atmospheres and lengthy meals
I miss your songs and poems and houses
where darkness is the only the thing that could ever produce light

I miss your wisdom and your circular patterns round the bend
your stone mills grinding
grinding away time into dust we share with the birds and bake into bread

I miss breaking bread
which breaks time
which stops time
and swallowing the whole of time with water, mead and wine

I miss your melting in my mouth before taste can reach time
before space can reach time
before time and space were seperated there was only bread and wine

I miss dining with the pharoahs before pharoahs were pharoahs
before fair was a row
of innocent former pharoahs numbered left to right
"step forward number six"
"I think that's him, it looks like him"

I miss the grace of the sand and the mercy of mother Egypt
before Babylon was Babylon
before towers were towers were torn down boweries
I miss the mouths of the marvelous myriad marrionettes

I miss wondering where the buildings from heaven go
I miss my flow disasterously evading time and truth
before wondering where do those crows in the windows sit
99 story
99 stories
99 charbroiled megalomaniacs
before wondering who are the crows in those building tops
99 dramatic tales, 99 floors up
if heat rises, there must be flame at the top
when the lid comes off
thousand dollar snow flakes litter the sidewalk
I miss life
before money

say I'm travellin'
through the desert with death
and we be flowin from Maine to the bottom left
wailing siren songs from Santa Fe to Detroit City

let's kill some people softly
and the rest of the month we'll carry their bones in our books
and let them out to dance at night
in all the honky tonks in the nation
til we get to D.C. with an army of bones and rage
and blast the capital building with words so heavy the stars come down to help us load 'em up

let's bust the seams out these thrift store pants
I miss that darkening dance
I miss that 4/4 trance
I miss that scuba-diving-in-the-Nile breakbeat style
death will carry me across the desert til the sand doth cover my lips
til this soaking soul can never be cold again
and I can
drip dry
drip dry
drip dry
drip dry
I can suck my heart right out of its cage
my ribs miss rage

say my people
do you draw the breath you used to from the wind you used to trust?
say my people
why do you hate yourselves when the devil's just dust?
say my people
why do you charge yourselves with conquering cages,
when the jail's just a replica of windows and rust?

say I'm travellin'
through the desert with death
he is leading me home to you
he is leading me home.