Author: pkhan

The Ongoing Story of the Everlasting 86 Tapes

Gosh, golly, Betty Jean, here’s one for the high school musical. I thought I did everything right and this is it?

Jack Shit

I hear Ivy has a sports team, or they did, a really long time ago. They could never get it right.

Number 86

A really incredibly ancient song, followed by a sort-of-newer one. Half of the second one is actually a rewrite of the first song, but can serve as a sequel. The second half of the second song is actually older than the first song. I think.

So obviously ‘number 86’ is about football. Maybe they should try baseball.

Fires On The Beach

This is a newer recording of a very very very very VERY old song. I dropped a verse, did some spit and shine, and here it is. More High School Musical. This was recorded in Glorious Mono then

S T E R E O I Z E D

You’ll just have to use your imagination for the kick ass guitar solo.

Fires On The Beach:

When the afternoon gets too deep for me
Let’s go outside and meet the sea
Tonight we’ll build a fire on the beach

When we can join in
With the other kids
Let’s kick our feet like dying swans

And fall out of reach
And laugh and yawn
Shake your body, baby
Like it’s all that you’ve got
Tonight we’ll build a little fire on the beach

Lay down with me
Wrapped in a sheet
You and me, we got time enough to dream
Of monarch butterflies
That dance across the dawn
When the chrysalis is gone
Can’t you hear their song?

When the afternoon gets too deep
Let’s go outside and meet the sea

Tonight we’ll build a fire on the beach

Maybe I Can Catch A Flight…

(I think this might be more of a Mondokhan song, but here you go…)

my last flight

running late for a paper plane
jet lag comin back again
superhero of the runaway
saving time i lost today

check my bags
i’m home tonight
im holding on tight
for my last flight

flying kites in a mindstorm
falling back on a cruciform
cut the string and rock and roll
wait for me, im halfway home

sometimes i get so high
i cant come down
sometimes i see you burning on the ground
sometimes i believe, sometimes i forget
I took a ride up on a rainbow
and lost my grip

check my bags
i’m home tonight
im holding on tight
for my last flight

In the symmetric turbulent wake
of a flat paper plate
today a distinguished scientist has made
the discovery of rain
falling on his face

(One of these lines is a throwaway… can you guess which one?)

No More Hearts to Break

(I recorded my junior high school musical song. Shove it in your locker!)

(For the girls with all the boyfiends. Little Johnny is sitting in the gymnasium, all alone with his guitar, his best friend, the guitar. He doesn’t even have a pick. Sniffle sniffle. Boys don’t cry, they don’t cry.)

Puppy Love

(Let’s pretend I found this lyric by the side of the road – on a page torn from a diary, crossed out, names scribbled over a hundred times with tight little circles, wadded up, stomped on, and left in the gravel and mud.)

“no more hearts to break”

hearts of gold get sold
hearts of fire fade
all the young hearts are getting old
and light hearts blow away

you were the first to say OK
i took your hand so i did not feel so strange

but sometimes a flower blooms
it spreads its petals and just runs out of room

hearts of gold get sold
hearts of fire fade
the young hearts are getting old
and light hearts blow away

where is the heartache
when theres no more love to take
cross your heart and hope to die
theres no more hearts to break

sometimes a flower blooms
it spreads its petals and just runs out of room

(“Ivy Dell”? More like “High School Musical”. Should I drown in vomit or just record the thing and be done with it? I sort of like the refrain bits. It’s sort of like a ‘fuck you’ greeting card.)

Under the Leaves…

(I just don’t know that this marks the way to Ivy. Maybe this is some other project altogether, must make a note in my journal…)

wonderful leaves turning gold, turning brown
wonderful leaves are falling down

we live in the leaves
and hear the roots singing
we’re shaking like bees
we set the leaves tumbling

wonderful leaves spinning round spinning round
will we leave them on the ground

the roots in my heart
but the year gets long
let me show lost ages
delicate and crumbling pages

wonderful leaves turning gold, turning brown
wonderful leaves are falling down

sometimes its spring sometimes its fall
beautful fall
ill get the leaves and keep them all

wonderful leaves turning gold, turning brown
wonderful leaves are falling down

wonderful leaves spinning round spinning round
will we leave them on the ground

(Sort of hopeful and sad at the same time?)

While Walking In The Woods, By A River…

(Plenty of trees and rivers in these parts…)

Little Milton’s Repose

through your charnel houses high
you’ll return to the sky
from fields hung high with fire
from the day and from the night
everyone returns
if you run
you will learn

down rivers green with gold
if you’re young if you’re old
to your scattered bodies go
you’ll return to your home
everyone will return
if you swim
or if you burn
everyone returns

A Shit Hole?

(Is this from a disgruntled resident of Ivy Dell, or am I on the wrong track altogether?)

people come to my shithole
they never put it down
people like this shithole
spend the day in a shit hole town

people come to my shithole
they shit on the streets
i’m cleaning my shithole
everybody gotta have a dream

rednecks with radios look like rodeo clowns
i live in a shithole
i live in a shithole town

look around the shithole
one time the river was running
wipe your feet on the shithole
it was running from you and me

one time in the shithole
in the graveyard me and you
someplace good not a shithole
I just want to feel good good good

i live in a shithole
shit all over me
shit all over me
i live in a shithole
shit all over me
shit all over me
shit all over me

Could be Ivy Dell Trailer Park…

(I stuck a couple of mics out on the porch to get the rain and door sounds, and proved that the mics could get moderately wet and be simultaneously dropped and still function at one hundred percent. My newer Chinese mics might not fare so well, though…)

Goatman Demo

(Trying to get a better examination of the Goatman song. With honest, genuine unsimulated crickets!)

i hear the goatman calling
i hear the goatman calling
he is calling you
he is calling you

i remember running by the river
i remember drowning in forgiveness
we’ll still shed our snakeskins
we’ll ride that river til its red
we’ll leave our little wind
down at the edge

i remember what you said
some things are barren but not dead
baby forgive me, make it all my fault
because my whole life
wherever i was
i wanted to be gone
except for that once

i hear the goatman calling
i hear the goatman calling
he is calling you
he is calling you

(Is this from Ivy Dell? GOATMEN?? I’m starting to think it might not be the lost paradise that people say…)

Digging Up Some Songs

I thought I’d check the Mondo P. Khan Myspace page to see if there were any songs there that might help in this project. It turns out that there are a few demos that may or may not end up being useful.

I liked these well enough, but do they point the way to Ivy Dell?

Wonderful Leaves

Goatman

Shithole

Little Milton’s Repose

Maybe, maybe not. I think further exploration is necessary before we can know for sure.

Goldmine Lyrics

goldmine

if all i had was gold
i could buy you this mountain
but i think i sold my soul
for the hole that im down in
something keeps pushing me
i keep on digging deeper
baby would you be so cold
if all i had was gold

if all i had was gold
would you be happy
in a mansion, all alone
trying to trap me
something keeps pushing me
i keep on digging deeper
baby would you be so cold
if all i had was gold

all i got is sunrise
a thousand days of sunrise
and next tries and white lies
and sun rise after sun rise
that’s my life

all i got is sunrise
warm days of endless sunrise
whatevers there behind the glare –
it’s all mine

if all i had was gold
i could buy you this mountain
but i think i sold my soul
for the hole that im down in
something keeps pushing me
i keep on digging deeper
baby would you be so cold
if all i had was gold

(I don’t know if this one’s quite up to snuff, also, the chords are a little sunny for me to take seriously. Are there gold mines in Ivy? I was thinking more along the lines of coal, but if you change this lyric it doesn’t make any sense. Mayhaps a guano mine?)

Goldmine

I made a ‘demo’ (rough draft) of a song which I conceitedly call ‘Goldmine’. Here’s the tune, the first time I played it:

You’ll notice there is a big instrumental break with no instruments in it. That’s because instead of making music this morning I was fixing software, fix one thing, break another. Repeat as necessary, repeat, repeat.

There aren’t any real overdubs at all, just one take to a stereo recorder. The fake background vocals are cut from the end of the track and mixed into the right part of the song later. When I record like this, if I make a mistake I just start that bit over again and cut the mistake out later. It’s digital, by nature fake.

Even When The Road is Gone

here is a lyric:

even when the road is gone
they still walk the road
past the old brokedown house by the gulley
in a little town in the valley

the grass grows on the old road we walked along
critters crawl and children stumble
and the wall that held the treeline – it aint so strong
the stones fall out where mortar crumbles

even when the road is gone
they still walk on the road
past the old brokedown house by the gulley
in a little town in the valley

they decided they dont need the road no more
georgie ray dont come to cut weeds
but my aunt sheila – she wont take the long way to the store
on sunday shes beneath magnolia trees

can you hear laughter
now and hereafter
in the black gravel dawn
even when the road is gone

even when the road is gone
they still walk on the road
past the old brokedown house by the gulley
in my little town in the valley