Math and Cosmonauts

For all interested parties I've started writing music and will possibly have an unprofessional-grad (but entertaining) album of strange psychedelic/rock/altered states/space poetry within a month or so. The name of the "group" - which consists of my computer, my guitar, and myself (I guess we're a trio) - is Math and Cosmonauts.


Now I know what you're thinking, the music I'm writing is probably self-indulgent tripe. I assure you it is. While I learned music at an early age, my biggest shortcoming is not knowing scales, though this doesn't seem to present too much of a problem if you have a good ear. Years of playing piano, trumpet, and guitar have helped me identify what sounds "right.

I tried my hand at a rock band in high school. We were awful. The, after college, I started writing songs, mostly humorous (an ode to a purple onion, a song about cooking bacon naked, etc.). The music of Math and Cosmonauts is very cathartic and has an immediacy of release that writing doesn't offer (too much editing). And I'm writing music just for me, I have no desire for these songs to be appreciated on a mass scale. (However, I'm willing to share them with close friends who express an interest.) I find that I can get a lot of residual anger off my chest much faster by writing a really dreary song than through writing a story in which somebody gets killed. Music speaks to us through different channels.


So far I have 6 songs, with tentative titles and track order.

1. Communist Algebra/Pitchfork
3. The French Are Not Our Friends
4. The World Wants Its Change
9. The Ninth Floor
10. It's Another Day
11. Roosting Alone

The songs are all very depressing, however I lighten the mood with some ironically synthesized horn blasts.

Below are the lyrics to two songs, Pitchfork (The most accomplished track - subject of the song should be easily idnetifiable to those who know my recent hardship) and The Ninth Floor (A creepy space-rock anthem based on a nickname I randomly dubbed my friend Marky).

Pitchfork

You came along and mutated me,
my genetic code was transcribed diseased.
High up in an airplane, in the ocean so deep,
now you're banging gavels or you're probably asleep.

Chorus
There was tequila, there were people,
there were parties, chasing steeples,
there was 6 and 7, 8 and 9 and then
Jean Luc but the French are not our friends.
We had it all until the fall,
took a spill and tumble down you go,
like a pitchfork bailing hay,
sail away.

[Righteous 1 minute solo]

It feels like murder when I wake for the day,
there's a guillotine and it's chopping away,
heads will roll and people will be tortured and splayed,
memories erased and faces washing away.

Altered Chorus
No more tequila, no more teachers,
no more singers, no more preachers,
telling me that only God can lead the way,
love is lorn, now there's hell to pay.
We had it all, we wore the chains,
set it free, only dust remains,
like a pitchfork bailing hay,
waste away.

[Second solo]

The Ninth Floor

[Creepy distorted voice] Who was on the ninth floor?

[Spoken word]
There is nothing among us,
we have no eyes.
We are out of grocery lists.
Where is the wire cage?
Why am I locked in the wire cage?

Six cups,
there are only six cups on the ninth floor.
The ninth floor is a rocket,
it will lead us to the ninth floor.

Into the stratosphere,
nitrogen rich,
deprived,
we will bend.
We will become craters.
We will no longer breath.
We will escape in skeletons,
we will sit in them.

And owls will become our hearts,
owls will be our hearts,
owls will be our hearts.