SOMESONGS 2024 Round 2 "Ephemeral"

[Mr. Blonde]

You may post your lyrics for your SOMESONGS 2024 Round 2 songs here.

[Mr. Blonde]

Ephemeral - The Idiot Kings

iPod cases
And charger bases
Calculators
Calling pagers

Ephemeral ideas
But plastic is forever

Nokia bricks
Laserdisc flicks

Ephemeral ideas
But plastic is forever

Challenge interpretation: Pretty literal. I changed instrument roles. The "drums" are made by bass, guitar, and vocals, the "guitbass" is a mandolin pitched down, one of the lead sounds is a sampled tom, and the other lead is a bass. I was hoping to get away without using a bass as a bass, but nothing else gave me a bit of low end oomph, so there is unfortunately a bass doing what it does.

[Mr. Blonde]

Ephemeral - Micah Sommersmith

The other night I was walking
Along the side of the road outside my house
In the watery moonlight
All the colors of day were filtered out
What the light of the morning
Would have rendered with substance, clear and strong
Were just sketches and shadows
Like the words of a half-remembered song

What I saw in the darkness
Was the transient fact of everything
Though the sunlight obscures it
We’re all one step away from vanishing
Mighty maples will tumble
Works of iron and stone will fall apart
Soon the strongest will stumble
Breath and being are both ephemeral

Ephemeral, ephemeral, I know it’s all ephemeral…

Oblique Strategy/Challenge: Change instrument roles
In the first two verses, the accordion provides rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment to the vocal melody. In the last verse, the voices provide rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment to the accordion melody.

[mo]

Ephemeral by Tomorrow

Prologue Mantras:
1. everything through a lens
every storm has an end

2. I am burning
While you blame me
For the smell of ashes

3. nothing is certain except that nothing is certain

Verse:
I am outside your frame
Desaturated
Filtered and faded
Stretched until truth thins out
Your story of the future filled with doubt
The photo roll of our past
Lost in the ephemeral

Chorus:
Nothing is certain except that nothing is certain
Still I burn
While you blame me
For the smell of ashes

Bridge:
Cartography
Only shows the world that you want to see
Alienation
All that’s left is you as I recede

Chorus:
Nothing is certain except that nothing is certain
Still I burn
While you blame me
For the smell of ashes

Epilogue:
Mantras revisited.

Challenge: the opening section and ending of the song use three separate spoken mantras to establish rhythm, instead of melody established by the vocal. This is buttressed with acoustic guitar played as percussion, hitting both body and strings (with a guiro, for some reason, but it did kinda do a cool thing with the strings). The melody is added by a lead solo bass guitar, and the bass part is played by a guitar via an analog octave pedal. In this section, every instrument including the vocal performs a different role than usual.

In the body of the song I have played an acoustic guitar transformed with a passerelle bridge into a new koto-like instrument, which I don’t know if that really counts but I felt like it could fit as I changed the guitar into a different type of instrument that required different technique and thinking to play. Kaki King obvs does it much better than me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlR_k7FZnsw

[Caravan Ray]

Ephemeral
- Caravan Ray

Life is short
And we're going too fast
Better buckle up
Or you won't last

Tearing down the highway
There is no end in sight
The world’s on fire
But it all feels alright

Please buckle up, it's gonna be a bumpy ride
Yeah, please buckle up
It's gonna be a bumpy, gonna be a bumpy, gonna be a bumpy ride
It's gonna be a bumpy, gonna be a bumpy, gonna be a bumpy ride
It's gonna be a bumpy, gonna be a bumpy, gonna be a bumpy ride

Fading lights across the sky
The moments blink, then pass you by
You hold on tight, but it slips away
Like whispers lost in the break of day

Please, buckle up
This won't last for long

Ephemeral
It is all we know
We're here for a minute, then we let it go
The world spins ‘round, and we rearrange
Ephemeral - things will always change

We build our castles in the sand
They wash away
But we understand

Buckle up
The night is long
The road is cruel
We don't belong
Buckle up
It's going wrong
Buckle up
Before its gone



Oblique Strategy/Challenge: Change instrument roles
I changed all the instruments. All of them. A lot of people - very smart people - have said it's the most amazing change of instrument roles ever. I made my keyboard a coffeve table and put my tic-tacs on it. Big tic-tacs. Little tic-tacs. All the tic-tacs. The late, great Hannibal Lector once turned a harpsichord into a theremin. Not a lot of people know that. I was going to make my electric guitar a boat - but I wondered what would happen if the electric-guitar-boat sank and there was a shark nearby? It's a good question. Someone should look into it.

[Mr. Blonde]

Ephemeral - Add

You can touch the light before you lose it
See your piece of mind off in the distance
You can chase it but you can't keep it
The water melts away after you reach it

Fleeting, passing, brief, momentary
Short-lived, interim, very very temporary
Nothing's here for long
Tomorrow we'll be gone

If you build it, the sea will take it
The hand of fate will wipe you off the planet
You feel the universe just for a minute
Circle the Milky Way before you're in it

Fleeting, passing, brief, momentary
Short-lived, interim, very very temporary
Nothing's here for long
Tomorrow we'll be gone

[Mr. Pink]

Ephemeral by Tomorrow

I don't see this one in the playlist for round 2.

I'll try reaching out to Joe or Nice Guy Eddie to see if there may have been a problem with the submission...

[mo]

I submitted to the email address a couple hours before deadline yesterday. I have just forwarded the email submission again, lmk if that works or not

[Mr. Pink]

It has now been added to the playlist and the list of individual tracks.

[mo]

Yay thank you!

[Mr. Blue]

Glenn Case - Ephemeral

It's tough to ignore
I wasted time
Being bored
But one thing hits you for sure
No matter what you do
You don't get more

Keep your eyes on the prize and the ball
and with one blink
The moment's gone
Still feels like it goes on and on
For a while it does
But before too long

You will die
And I will die
Regardless of prescriptions or advice
We're not here long
It's ephemeral
So what will you do with your life?

Someday it's going to end
You don't think
You don't think of it
The years all came and they went
All that time
Felt infinite

Keep your eyes on the prize and the ball
Take another blink
The moment's gone
Still feels like it goes on and on
For a while it does
But before too long

You will die
And I will die
Regardless of prescriptions or advice
We're not here long
It's ephemeral
So what will you do with your life?

You will die
And I will die
Regardless of prescriptions or advice
We're not here long
It's ephemeral
So what will you do with your life?

You will die
And I will die
Regardless of prescriptions or advice
We're not here long
It's ephemeral
So what will you do with your life?

On the subject of changing instrument roles

Fist on desk - kick drum
Striking above the neck of guitar - snare
Kazoo bass and "guitar solos"
Bass chords playing on the high strings during verses

Additionally:
Lead vocal panned left where a harmony vocal would go.
Lower octave vocal panned right where a harmony vocal would normally go.
Harmony vocal panned center where a lead vocal would normally go.