14 : 4/24/98 : Valedictory

Well this day seems to find us all together
Sitting in a waiting room standing in the line
Well when the day is done when it's all said and done
A handshake a certificate to pay us for our time

Shall I address the crowd point them to the next life
Stand up and make a showing for my race
Do I have something fine to make us feel uplifted
Do I have hard words that will put us in our place

Past history
Waiting for the mystery
This is my victory
this is my valedictory

I seem to need to clear my throat more than usual
can't seem to pry my eyes open to face the hall
Well I imagine it's all something I imagined anyway
Well I imagine I'm just talking to the wall

We'll all open our eyes at the same time
by and by we'll all be blinded by the light
Yes we'll all wake up facing our own halls
To see a thing unthought of such a sight

Our history
We always lived the mystery
We'll find our victory
This is our valedictory

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

13 : 4/23/98 : Coriolis

Swish sway move away
trance dance make amends
ebb and flow, shift and grow
coriolis dance unfolds us

Sins repented slightly dented
halos glimmered salt seas shimmered
round about and down the spout
Mixmatch mismatch strike a slim match

Oh vanity she says to me
Resist the flow swim past the hole
Invoke the sky ask heaven why
It always pulls the pins
and spins us widdershins

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

12 : 4/22/98 : Gumball (One Fine Day Revisited)

Half past the eleventh hour
was time always so narrow
Halfway to the point of power
So slips by time's swift arrow

Another witchy moment looms
another night spent in the tombs
of silent thoughts and empty rooms
a man will reap what he exhumes

One fine day
the phone is gonna ring
And someone will say just one word
that changes everything

Halfway round the rutted loop
The earth's old cycle spent
My god the depths to which I'll stoop
My god the way the path has bent

And pacing through the slow decline
A slump that settles in my spine
Oh could I ever make it mine
The way the fleeting moments shine

One fine day
The phone is gonna ring
And someone will say just one word
That changes everything

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

11 : 4/21/98 : Light, Water, Circles, Silence

Light, water, circles, silence
In the circle of the setting sun
Transfixed transfigured crucified
on light water circles silence

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

10 : 4/20/98 : Positronic

Overdriven relays flipping open like a flash flood
Tube driven mercury boiling in the place of blood
Phosphor dot glowing hot steaming like a waterfall
Ten percent heaven sent who said you can't have it all

Positronic positive one hundred percent mind
Make a sharper synapse with a gentle dose of kind
Pixilated overrated sleeping in a flower bed
Every laugh's a lepton and I only need a larger head

White bright dendrite curling open like a stigma
White night so far so bright so much like an enigma
Just a humble mind expanding faster than a star's collapse
Superstring fast expanding alabaster synapse

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

9 : 4/19/98 : Small Sad Song

I try not to talk about
myself so much as before
What use are my feelings
to you anymore

But time is a cruel reminder
of everything we fail at
sometimes I find I run out
of wider issues to rail at

Leaving me always me
with my small sad song
Just the night and my thoughts
and I don't have long

To redeem myself
somehow it seems I left myself
somewhere when I wasn't looking
collecting dust on some dark shelf...

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

8 : 4/18/98 : Vicious Cycles Revisited

Vicious Cycle vicious cycle
where are you leading me?
Down the same old path again

If I can't be a man
who can?
And the world and all
its same old vicious
cycles
Will just go down the
same old path
again

Is this destiny,
Is this God's will,
Is this anything special,
is this entropy,
is this
Incontrovertible
Are we all
spinning out along
these
vicious
cycles?

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

7 : 4/17/98 : Morality

Despite my better judgment
and the dictates of my culture
Despite the deep complexities
of living in the modern age
I am still a man
who finds value in a state of being
I call honor
I still find value in a quality
That I see as integrity
I hold a structure of beliefs
I call morality
In a word
I am old-fashioned
I have a fifty seven year old
hammer in my hand
Drives a nail straight and true
I have a fifty seven year old
hammer in my hand
I am a man
I am a man
I am a man a man a
man a man a man

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

6 : 4/16/98 : Clone Baby

When they clone the first supermodel
I'll be the one who won't be surprised
Neoformalism has its place on the runway
Sech long long beautiful thighs

Ooh clone baby
You sech a, you sech a beautiful girl
Ooh clone sistah
You're my crystalline pearl

So fresh so new each one a miracle of science
Keep a few on ice just in case
Wouldn't it be nice to have just one more Marilyn
There's nobody that can't be replaced

Ooh when I shake you clone lover
You shower me in earthly delights
Sech a sweet clone sistah
Every night I see the Northern Light

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

5 : 4/15/98 : Men Without Style

(“What is Fashion?... It is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months” - Oscar Wilde)

We're wear wear wearing
our coats of many colors
with the black side out
So as not to raise a shout

We keep our colors
Up against our skins
we don't reveal our intention
And we pass you without mention

What you call fashion
One more circuit to drain your energy
We are men without style
Without encumbrance almost relatively free

You won't forget the day when
we reverse our tactics
When we let our colors fly
And raise our ragged battle cry

The men without style have landed
We are among you...
We are among you...

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

4 : 4/14/98 : Unfortunate Man

Heaven help this unfortunate man
he can't help always staring ahead
Heaven help us what a mess we have made
Heaven help whoever has to sleep in this bed

(Unfortunate man)
And it's an unfortunate man
(Unfortunate man)
Who gets handed the crystal ball
(Unfortunate man)
It's an unfortunate man
(Unfortunate man)
Who has to gaze into the crystal ball

Oh Mr. Executive Suite would
Love to get a piece of his sweet augury
Oh that religious brother
Likes to be just little more prepared than me

(Unfortunate man)
Nobody wants what they need
(Unfortunate man)
No, nobody ever wants what they need need need
(Unfortunate Man)
Except the unfortunate man

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

3 : 4/13/98 : The Many and the Few

The same old tired algebra
the have’s and the have-not’s
the lax and the enlightened
the hardened and the soft

the nature of the world it’s said
the many and the few
the many who don’t have enough
so few of us that do

Beggars on foot beggars on horseback
the quickened and the dead
the princes and the powerless
blind leaders, the blind led

The many and the few
the many and the few
so many do not have enough
so few of us that do

The many and the few
the me’s and all the you’s
the same old tired algebra
I guess it’s what we choose

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

2 : 4/12/98 : The Center

I looked up and saw the lathe of heaven spinning in the sky
I looked down and saw my feet three inches past the edge of night
Far out past the furthest reach of distances the mind can hold
No push no pull no dark no light no weight no heat no cold

And the Center will not hold tonight
And I cannot be bold tonight
The center will not hold out any longer
And it's cold out but I'm stronger
Than I've ever been before

I looked back behind and saw that time is just a filing case
I looked in the mirror and saw the same old unfamiliar face
Resemblance is uncanny but I'm not a man who knows his place
The center is unearthly and it vanishes without a trace

And the lathe is spinning past control
And I am just another troll
Three billygoats won't pay the toll on this bridge
Always leaping for the next ridge
Always something past the known

It makes so little sense to ponder distances far past the point
where distance loses meaning where extension's just another joint
But if I cannot fix the spindle where it all is hinged and hung
And if the center will not hold how will I know my song is sung

The Center cannot hold tonight
And I cannot be bold tonight
The center cannot hold against a tide of flux
A thousand reaching minds in flux
All shaping something stranger than before

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

1 : 4/11/98 : Huntress Moon

It seems it seems I left too soon
I’m howling at a huntress moon - Diana,
Diana

and all I left behind stalks me
Demeter’s unstrung bow mocks me - Diana,
Diana

Will I meet you underneath a huntress moon
would you free me underneath a huntress moon

I dance in darkness like a fool
I only want to be your tool - Diana,
Diana

I forced your hand by being weak
the moon the moon the moon so bleak - Diana,
Diana

Will I meet you underneath a huntress moon
would you free me underneath a huntress moon

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

Let's begin again

Newcomers might prefer to read the briefer, friendlier introduction to Songs of Days, located here.

(revised 9/20/11 - archive of original introductions and explanations here - visit here to support)

Songs of Days Project 1 were posted from July 18, 2006 through January 5, 2011

The Interim Project songs were posted from January 7, 2011 through May 3, 2011

Songs of Days Project 2 are being posted now: posting began on May 4, 2011 and will continue until September 18, 2038, or until I falter, or perish. Whichever comes first.

Songs of Days Project 1
Between April 11, 1998 and January 5, 2001 I wrote 1,001 lyrics over the course of 1,001 consecutive days. My goal was to write a song each day. Some days I missed: these songs had to be written later to catch up. The majority of songs were written on the day for which they were assigned. I posted these songs in the order I wrote them. Most of these songs were posted exactly ten years after they were written. Each post title includes the numerical order of the song and the date for which it was written.

The Interim Project
I began posting the second Songs of Days project lyrics on the 6th anniversary of their composition. This left a few months gap after I'd finished posting the first project's songs. In between I posted other lyrics I'd written outside of the daily projects. Further explanation of the interim lyrics can be found here.

Songs of Days Project 2
Following a hiatus of over four years from daily songwriting and for the most part from writing lyrics altogether, On May 4, 2005 I started the second song of the day project with a goal of writing 10,000 consecutive songs. This work is ongoing. As with the posting of the first project, post titles for these songs include the numerical order of the song and the date for which it was written: to distinguish these songs from the first project, for the second project song number "n" is noted as 2.n (2.1, 2.2, 2.3, etc.).

On most Mondays I post a short graphical status report on my current songwriting project that looks like this:

926 : 1 ?



Explanation


: These Icons indicate if I'm running a song backlog and if so how much (see key below)



926: Number of songs written in the current project

Note that I discovered in early March 2010 that I'd made a number of errors in the song count throughout the writing of these songs, so the all the figures for numbers of songs written that I posted prior to January 25, 2010 are off slightly. A longer explanation can be found here.

1: Most recent number of songs written consecutively without missing a day (resets to zero whenever I fail to write a song on its assigned day. My current record for continuity is in the low one hundreds)

?: links to this explanation.

Icon Guide


Songs are current. There is no backlog of work to do.



Songs are less than a week behind schedule.



Songs are between one week and a month behind schedule.



Songs are between a month and three months behind schedule.



Songs are more than three months behind schedule.