Categories
Demos FAWM 2014 Rock and/or Roll

Summer

Listen up: Summer, MP3

A new addition to my “One Long Year” song cycle. (You can see the overview of the project here: https://musicblog.gregscheer.com/one-long-year/.) I’ll be up front with you and say that I’m not completely convinced by this one. I felt like I needed something a bit up tempo to break up all the introspective, slow songs. But it’s a bear to craft good upbeat songs, isn’t it? They’re very easy to write, but catchy quickly becomes cloying and high energy becomes hokey. I tried to keep this simple and summery to reflect the time of year and the light style most summer songs take, but underneath that the song is really about regrets. Like I said, I’m not entirely convinced that the song works. I figure the beauty of FAWM is that I can write quickly and intuitively and then edit or cut later. I’ll take any advice you have for me.

 1. The days are hot and the nights are long
When was the last time any of us got any sleep at all?
Bonfire glow and a keg of beer
Is it any wonder things got a little weird?Wake at noon and it all comes back
The smell of suntan lotion and the sweet taste of regret
We’ve all got our secrets, we’ve all made mistakes
Still, I’ve got a feeling there’s going to be hell to pay

CHORUS
Everyone’s hoping for an endless summer
I’m just hoping for a place to land
‘cause I’m as high as a kite
And I think I might have just cut my string

There’s a fine line between freedom
And free floating in the wind
And I’m wondering if I can ever make it back again
Am I the only one who wishes summer would end?

2. It’s been one hot summer, and one long year
After a lonely spring with more rain than a heart could bear
It’s been too much work and too little play
And so much pressure that it had to come out some way

The sun bakes into on my salty skin
like it’s writing a page in the book of my life’s sin
Invisible ink but it won’t wash off
How do I manage to betray everyone I love?

CHORUS

CHORUS 2
If I survive this sweltering summer
Make it through another fall
I’ll wait out the winter
And joke that I’ve been through hell.

But it’s no joke. The way I’m headed
I’ll be a broken, empty man.
Drift away like the summer sand.
Am I the only one who wishes summer would end?

Categories
FAWM 2014 Rock and/or Roll

Never Perfect

“Never Perfect” is the second song in my One Long Year song cycle. This one, pretty obviously, corresponds with Valentine’s Day. I originally wrote a version of this last year as a quirky meditation on love. However, it’s been completely reworked here so that it will fit into the context of this year’s One Long Year project. (I.e. more depressing and mostly hopeless.) 

St. Valentine
Can you share a little wisdom?
You were chaste, but love’s your business
It’s your day, but it’s my daily burden.

My love and I, we have our holiday traditions
Like the way we ruin Christmas
And anniversaries over stupid things like the dishes.
It’s never perfect.

St Valentine
Do you take prayers from weary lovers?
Who aren’t looking for another
But wonder how they ended up like business partners or brothers.

Why does love seem so perfect at a distance?
Does the consummation kill it?
Wondering if it’s worth it
When it’s never perfect. 

St. Valentine
You were a saint, but I’m sinner.
I pray the pain of love won’t kill me,
But I’m afraid that pray’s not working
It’s never perfect.

 
Categories
FAWM 2014 Quirky

Raisins

Taking a break from all the seriousness, here’s a goofy little kid’s song: Raisins.

Yesterday I was rehearsing with a piano-playing mom. She had to take a call, so I entertained her son Blake with a song about the raisins he was eating. This morning I decided it was good enough to round out with verses about graham crackers and oranges.

Raisins. I’m just wild about raisins.
And I’m craving nature’s perfect dessert
These shriveled grapes
Make me go ape
Make me go crazy and it’s only getting worse
So give me raisins and you won’t get hurt

Graham crackers. I love to snack on graham crackers.
The biggest factor is their crispy sweet crunch.
In twos or in fours
In soup or s’mores
I’d fight a weed whacker to have them for lunch
So give me graham crackers and I’ll start to munch

Orange. Sweet, juicy orange.
Sing la la loobidy lorange dabba doobity doo
Peel off their skin
And I’ll jump right in
Ba boobadee borange ee doo, la loobidy loridy loo
I’d like an orange. How ‘bout you?

Categories
FAWM 2014 Rock and/or Roll

I’m Almost Already Gone

The third song in my One Long Year song cycle , this song accompanies Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday’s themes of mortality are amplified and seen through unbelieving eyes. Look out. It’s pretty depressing stuff. Take a listen: MP3.

1. Dust to dust and ashes to ashes
And whatever way the cold wind blows.
Iron to rust, and flames in the grass.
You just don’t know.

You just don’t know
When your day will come,
But your ending is clear.
No one’s sure
where we go,
but I’m sure it won’t be here.

CHORUS
I don’t need a cross of ashes,
‘cause I’m already marked
with a curse of death and dispassion
that I wear like a scar.

I don’t need a cross of ashes
To remind me that I’m the dirt’s favorite son.
I came from dust and to dust I’ll pass, and
I’m almost already gone

2. I’m paying for sins I have yet to commit—
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
I suffer the sting of poison that Adam bit.
Haven’t I had enough?

Enough remorse 
For my father’s sins;
We’re all sacks of dirt in the end.
You can sing your songs,
But in your dry heart you know
It’s your own grave you’re filling in. CHORUS

3. I was born alone and I’ll die alone. And in between
I’ll share some loneliness with you.
We’ll share our dirt and we’ll call it love;
It’s all we can do.

All we can do
In the meantime,
Until the wind sweeps us on,
Is huddle close
Against the cold,
But it still chills me to the bone. CHORUS

Categories
FAWM 2014 Rock and/or Roll

This Night Will Never End

Take a listen to the first song in the “One Long Year” song cycle: MP3. This is setting up the story–as the new year begins, the protagonist is fairly giddy with the positive prospects that a new year with his old love will bring. Little does he know that the upcoming year will see his love and his life unraveling.

If you’re interested in keeping track of where the song cycle is headed, you can visit the new “One Long Year” page. If you want a feel for the February Album Writing Month community, head over to my FAWM page.

Turn up the music and turn down the lights
We’re gonna love like it’s the last night of our lives.
Just you and me—our heads full of wine—
We’re holding on for dear life.

(I hope) This night will never end.

At the stroke of midnight a new year starts
(and I’m) right where I want to be, wherever you are.
If I die before I wake
I want to die in your embrace.

This night will never end.

At 10 pm I said, “how many ways do I love you?” 
I was up to 9 when I lost count. 
We 8 a little dinner by candlelight,
Drank a ’76 cabernet sauvignon.
It must have been 5 times that you asked me
What is that smile 4? And I said,
“3 for each year we’ve been together
and 2 to wish us many more.”
Tell me; tell me, am I the only 1? 

(Who’s thinks) This night will never end.

Turn up the music and turn down the lights
We’re gonna love like it’s the last night of our lives.
Just you and me—our heads full of wine—
We’re holding on for dear life.

This night will never end.

Categories
Demos FAWM 2014 Rock and/or Roll

St. Patrick

Listen to the MP3 while you read all about it below.

You know about FAWM, right? During February Album Writing Month, thousands of songwriters across the globe commit to writing 14 songs in 28 days, congregating at FAWM.org to share inspiration, encouragement, and demos of completed songs. Last year I was a newbie who used the opportunity to write my Hallel Psalm cantata Everlasting to Everlasting. This year I’m working on a project called “One Long Year,” a song cycle detailing the year-long unraveling of the protagonist. Each song will be tied in some way to a date on the calendar, starting and ending on New Year’s Eve. In the case of the song below, it’s St. Patrick’s Day.

1. Do you remember
The night we fell in love?
We were closer than a kiss
Pressing hip to hip
And I said, “I can’t…
I just can’t get enough.”

We were drinking
to St. Patrick and to our love.
I said “God bless the holy saint
Of water and of drink!”
And you laughed, “Maybe–
maybe you’ve had enough.”

2. This year
Your kiss was quick, my drink was long
Do I think another round
will finally drown
This feeling
That we’ve been two islands all along?

CHORUS
There’s an ocean, there’s an ocean
there’s an ocean , there’s an ocean
There’s an ocean between me
And my love.

3. St Patrick
You sailed the sea to set sinners free.
If ever there was a soul
Adrift and alone
St Patrick
St Patrick, it is me.

CHORUS
There’s an ocean, there’s an ocean
there’s an ocean , there’s an ocean
There’s an ocean between me
And everything I love.

BRIDGE
Jesus Christ, I need a miracle
Like water into wine, or life to Lazarus
All I have left in terms of miracles
Is turning beer into piss.

I can’t. I just can’t get enough.
I can’t. I just can’t get enough.
I can’t. I just can’t get enough.

Categories
Church Congregational Songs Contests Hymn tunes

The World Lay Languishing in Pain

I will not enter any more contests. I will not enter any more contests. I will not enter any more contests. I will not enter any more contests. I will not enter any more contests. I will not enter any more contests. I will not enter any more contests. I will not enter any more contests. I will not enter any m…DRAT!

I entered another contest.

PDF, MP3 (with the W82 Singers)

Categories
Church Congregational Songs Contests Hymn tunes

I Eat Rejection Like Pizza

Anybody for a slice of humble pie?

A few years ago FaithAlive asked composers to submit tunes for four texts slated for their forthcoming hymnal. The hymnal is no longer forthcoming. Lift Up Your Hearts was published this year, and as expected, all four of my submissions were rejected. Let us wallow, shall we?

Our first slice of humble pie is dished up courtesy of Timothy Dudley-Smith and his text “As in That Upper Room.” Richard VanOss was the winner with his tune UPPER ROOM (LUYH #156). We took very different approaches in our tunes, and I don’t feel bad conceding victory to Richard’s direct and singable solution:

VanOss versus Scheer / VanOss wins!

We go back for seconds with Brian Wren’s “We Are Your People.” SPIRIT-PRAYER by Larry E. Schultz won the right to accompany the text on page 248 of the hymnal. Larry’s spritely tune is likable, but flattens out the subtleties of the text’s rhythmic scheme. Having said that, mine is kind of odd. But it grows on you.

Schultz versus Scheer / The jury is still out.

I don’t want a third helping of humble pie, but Sylvia Dunstan has a fork poised at my pie-hole ready to force feed me with a crushing loss to David Landegent’s BETA, which appears with Dunstan’s text “Blest are the Innocents” (LUYH #108). She originally wrote the text to go with the tune of “Be Thou My Vision,” and I stuck close to that tune with a simple pentatonic folk tune. Dave, on the other hand, went with a jazz ballad style that, in my opinion, takes a poignant text on the Slaughter of the Innocents in an entirely wrong direction. The Fmaj13 chord at the end of the hymnal arrangement is the final nail in the aesthetic coffin.

Landegent versus Scheer / I was robbed!

Though I feel absolutely stuffed with humility, there is one more slice of humble pie waiting for me. In this case, my tune for Stephen Starke’s text, “Jesus, Greatest at the Table,” lost to no one. This is almost as humiliating as the time in high school I got third place in a composition contest–when there was no second or first place winner. (Who does that to a kid?) My only consolation is that I have company in my rejection. I feel your pain, Stephen. Really, I do.

Categories
Half the Man

New Year’s listening

Followers of this blog will have noticed a significant drop in posting frequency in the last few months. The sad truth is that I’ve been too busy to post much, or for that matter, write much. So while you’re waiting for me to regain my mojo, why don’t you spend a little time with my Half the Man CD?

You can hear it in a number of ways: 1. Buy the CD at my website. Hand-crafted in small batches, they’re so rare, that if CDs were animals, this one would be endangered. 2. Buy the MP3s (whole project or individual songs) at CDBaby or iTunes. 3. Listen on Spotify, eMusic, etc.

Categories
Arrangement Choir Church Congregational Songs

Prepare the Way, O Zion – two ways

Last year I was re-introduced to the Advent hymn “Prepare the Way, O Zion” (BEREDEN VÄG FÖR HERRAN) through the great recording Proclaim the Bridegroom Near by Chicago Metro Presbytery Music. (An unwieldy name, but one of my new favorite Christmas CDs.)

This year I decided to include the carol in Church of the Servant’s Lessons & Carols service. (It’s next Sunday at 6pm if you’re in Grand Rapids.) However, I knew I needed to make some adjustments to make it work for our musicians. What resulted was two arrangements: a fairly straight ahead 4-part version of the tune in its original 6/4 meter, and a 4/4 swing leadsheet for jazz combo.

I don’t have recordings yet, but wanted to make it available anyway, as some of you still might be able to use the music this year. For now, you’ll just have to enjoy Chicago Metro’s version.

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=438264177 size=medium bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 t=3]