Do you feel up against the entire world
and you can’t see change down the line?
When your faith is completely blown away,
what’s left to say except goodnight.
Then, you see the stars that shine
Years ago they sent such light
as if to reach your eyes
Step outside into the air we’ve sold away
hoping our cash will pay for tomorrow’s lives.
There, you’ll see the stars that shine.
Years ago they sent their light
Before our time came and went
Before industry had lives to spend
Before we copyrighted seeds
Before jealousy paired with greed
Long before they sold it all
Before we thought of building walls
Licking hands that never feed
Watching brothers as they bleed
We were really nothing then,
We’re nothing still, let’s not pretend
That the universe was made for us
A playground that we’ve let rust
We’ve tossed away
Our world of blue
So hold me now,
And i’ll hold you
And let our iris try to find
The ageless ancient stars at night
A gentle glow, with no intent,
To find our eyes, their journey ends tonight
It can only exist if you make it
It can only be seen through your eyes
like a shadow in darkness
waiting for you to turn on the light
It might arrive when you aren’t looking
or it could take a few tries
We all see a different beast
in the clouds up in the sky
It’s not hard to fall in love, if you want to fall in love
If it’s what you want
It takes time to know that you want it
It takes time to know what it means
to give yourself over to another
shaping who you can be
Like David buried in marble
Like a totem in place of a tree
Like the valley waiting for the prairie
to be worn down by the stream.
It’s not hard to fall in love, if you want to fall in love
It’s not hard to fall in love, if you want, to fall in love
If it’s what you want right now.
We may wander and we may roam
every step on our father's bones
These cities rose up, up from the ground
but in time they'll blow back down
Oh the wind will blow
dead leaves into the snow
washed up in the tide
upon the shores of time
but tonight
Your hand on my heart
Your hand on my heart
I need your hand on my heart
Your hand on my heart
Oh the wind will blow
dead leaves into the snow
washed up in the tide
upon the shores of time
but tonight
If our souls should choose to rise
and make their homes in the afterlife
could we look back upon our lives
what would we see in the blink of an eye
about
Over the past few months I've been trying to develop some new skills, one of which is string arrangement. On some of my past records I've had fun working out arrangements with the players themselves, but this was usually done vocally, or I'd play the parts for them on guitar or piano. It's become clear that a more effective approach would be to articulate my ideas on paper, the old fashioned way. So, before diving into a bunch of new material without learning how to swim, I decided to take a look back and work out arrangements for some of my older songs. I suppose the analogy for these sessions would be that I'm "treading water". Not drowning, I hope.
These are the first three arrangements that I wrote. While I know that I have quite a lot to learn, I thought you might enjoy hearing these first attempts.
So here you go, they're for you.
A Link to the Past - when I wrote and recorded the original, I imagined I was using an old tape 4 track to limit the amount of parts. As I wrote, I remember thinking how grand it would sound being played on strings, instead of my little dinky casio keyboard. So this was the first arrangement I attempted.
To Fall In Love - I originally wrote this song on the ukulele as a ballad. The recorded version on "To Be a River" turned out to be a kind of fun funk jam of sorts. After playing this song at a friends wedding a couple of years ago, I thought it would be a fitting song for string quartet.
Oh, the Wind Will Blow - This is one of my more 'popular' songs, and I still like it too, so I thought I would attempt it. I'm not sure if I can beat the original version. I also want to note that Natanielle Felicitas played cello on the original version, and those parts were written collaboratively between her, myself, and Calvin McElroy. The original also contains a sample of the song "C'est Beau la Vie" by Jean Ferrat, which one of melodies is based on. So thanks to them all.
I want to thank Maria Kindt for looking over my arrangements before the session, and to all of the players for donating their time when the session went a bit longer than we initially expected. And thank you to Jesse Mangum for recording them so nicely.
And thanks for Maureen Murray for coming up with the title of this EP, and for being so amazing all the time.
-Doug Hoyer
credits
released October 11, 2017
Keiko Ishibashi - Violin
Scotty Allen - Violin
Maria Kindt - Viola
Noah Johnson - Cello
Doug Hoyer - Songs, Vocals, String Arrangements
Quartet recorded and mixed by Jesse Mangum at the Glow Studio in Athens GA. Vocals for "To Fall in Love" recorded by Jesse at the Glow, all other vocals recorded by Doug in his apartment.
Album art by Doug Hoyer, photo of the turtle trio taken at Memorial Park, Athens GA.
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