Top 8 Songs of the Month ~ January 2023 ~ Lila Ehjä, Tricor, Scary Black

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been writing so many blogs lately, but it feels like my last Top Songs of the Month blog was like a week ago. But, I do have new music to get to. I used some of my Christmas money to splurge on Bandcamp Friday last Friday, and I picked some winners. Got some albums I’ve been meaning to buy for a long time but couldn’t because I have this pesky food addiction that I can’t seem to kick. (I really need to go to rehab, I just can’t stop eating two normal-sized meals a day.) I really do try to pay for my music, even if I have to wait months before I have enough disposable income to buy an album sometimes. I know artists probably make even less money on YouTube than the absolutely minuscule fractions of a penny they make on Spotify, but I just don’t like Spotify. But I feel guilty for not paying for every song I get into, at least not immediately. 

Anyway, probably the crown jewel of my Christmas acquisitions this year was Christian Death’s Only Theatre of Pain on vinyl. Something to add to my fledgling record collection that’s goth, since previously all I had were some dusty old jazz records from the thrift store and Nirvana’s self titled “best of” album. I talked about that in a previous blog. Let’s get to my picks this month. And the last two aren’t goth, I just felt like talking about some of the other music I’ve been listening to, because I’m still on kind of a 90s grunge kick and have been for like a year and a half at this point, although it’s still secondary to new goth music. I went through the whole Alice in Chains discography and now I’ve been digging into the thousands of Nirvana demo tapes that somehow got saved. Maybe Soundgarden will be my next special interest, I still haven’t heard all their albums, we’ll wait and see.

Lila Ehjä ~ Bats

Here’s my first hit of 2023. This song came up in my subscriptions on YouTube the other day and I loved it. Lila Ehjä hails from Paris, France. I need to check out her other music, but this track is a very haunting one, good for dark meditation. I was just in the right mood for it when I heard it. 

This is off the album Yö. For a French person it seems she loves her umlauts. The album released on January 3rd.

https://crouxrecords.bandcamp.com/album/y

Tricor ~ Last Christmas 

Christmas may be over, but I’m still listening to this song. Someone actually made a good goth Christmas song that I can listen to all year. And it’s of course a cover of the famous Wham! song. I’ve heard one other  cover I liked of this song, it was in the style of Type O Negative by the tribute band Stereotype O Negative. Tricor has some other great music too, this was the first song I had heard of theirs. 

It’s a single, not off any album. You can find it here:

https://tricor.bandcamp.com/track/last-christmas

Scary Black ~ You and I are Not the Same

This album, Are you Afraid of the Dark?, has been out fir a few years, released in 2019, but I finally tot around to buying it off Bandcamp during my splurge. I’ve long liked the song “Stay in Your Lane” as well as the title track. But this is one I had never heard until I bought the album. It makes me think of how different I feel from most people, thanks to being neurodivergent. Scary Black is an awesome band, probably the closest sounding band to Slow Danse with the Dead that I’ve heard, that of course being pretty much my favorite band that’s still active, so Scary Black is definitely up there on my list too. Another of those Kentucky goth bands. 

The album can be found here, and Scary Black has had releases since this album too which are also worthwhile checking out.

https://scaryblack.bandcamp.com/album/are-you-afraid-of-the-dark

Rayne Reznor ~ Alive

No relation to Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails; at least I don’t think so. I thought at first maybe it was his cool goth daughter or something, lol. This song caught me by surprise with how addicting it is. I really haven’t been into dancey dark-electro music as much as I used to be, but this song I still loved. I like the robotic glitch effect on her voice, if you listen to it you’ll know what I’m on about. I think this might be her first release, actually. Correct me if I’m wrong, this is the only song I’ve seen of hers on Bandcamp anyway. Just released on December 20th.

https://raynereznor.bandcamp.com/track/li-e

Qual ~ The Geometry of Wounds

This is just a song I chanced upon. Qual is from England, and this song came out in 2015. I don’t even know if that picture in the video is in any way associated Qual because that doesn’t appear to be the album cover, but I love it. Looks like the God Anubis sitting back with a joint and sighing “I’m too ancient for this shit.” Anyway, I need to check out Qual’s album. That song “Spit on Me” sounds interesting. 

https://qual.bandcamp.com/album/sable-2

Deus ex Lumina ~ Fight Back!

This song has a brand new music video that got posted last night. I’ll call this my second hit of 2023. The song was released on Bandcamp on January 6th. Written as a “New Year’s Resolution” according to the singer’s commentary, and is an anti-authoritarian anthem. It’s catchy too, and I love the message. It would be nice if more people did fight back against tyranny. But they’re too busy sleeping. Classism keeps it all in place. 

https://deusexlumina.bandcamp.com/track/fight-back

Leonard Cohen ~ You Want it Darker

Now here’s something different for me. I first heard of Leonard Cohen in the Nirvana song “Pennyroyal Tea”, which contains the lyric “Give me Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally.” I didn’t know who that was, but it was such a strange lyric that it stuck in my mind. Then I heard the song “Everything I Love is Dead” by Devoted Sinners, which of course was on my list last month, and one of the dead singers mentioned in the song was Leonard Cohen. So was wondering, who is this guy? So I looked him up finally, and realized he wrote that song “Hallelujah”, which is popular but I never really liked, even when Aurelio Voltaire covered it (and I like 99% of his songs). I decided to look at his other music though, and the title of this track grabbed my attention because, yes, I ALWAYS want it darker. It was like he was beckoning me into his music with that title. It came off his final album apparently, in 2016. It was a swan-song album, a lot like David Bowie’s Blackstar. I always love “I’m gonna die soon” albums for some reason, I mean it’s going to happen to all of us eventually. So for some reason it captivated me and I liked the whole album. Coincidentally I have been enjoying acoustic rock for months now, and it fit right in with that genre of music. I like his low, gravely voice. Leonard Cohen must have been one of those really cool old guys, full of wisdom but well past the point of caring what others think, just doing his thing before his time’s up, having accepted his fate. It kind of helps me accept my own fate, listening to it. I like music that does that. It doesn’t even matter about the genre if the music is that deep. I’ll listen to a pop song if it ever goes that deep (it never does though).

I guess I’m supposed to plug his album now. Hmm, it’s not on Bandcamp. But this track is self titled, so you can find it. 

Nirvana ~ Moist Vagina

What is it about Kurt Cobain that just endears everyone with him? Maybe I’m just reminded of myself, because he was just a regular artistic guy, not born rich, in fact was nearly homeless on a few occasions, who wanted to do art instead of work at a horrible job, had a terrible home life in childhood, and had chronic pain and depression. Just like me for the most part. I feel like we’re cut from the same cloth, it may or may not be true but that’s how I feel. But he was unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight, and even though he engineered this fame himself he was so unprepared for such astronomical fame that it quite frankly killed him. I think it just reinforces my mind that I don’t want to be famous. Maybe a part of me does want to be famous, but I know I wouldn’t be able to handle it. So I’m content with living and dying in obscurity. 

Anyway, I’m getting way off topic. I’ve been binging the obscure Nirvana songs that never made it onto the albums, and just when I think I’ve heard them all I run across another one I’ve never heard. “She Only Lies” is the other song I’ve been listening to a lot the past few days. This song just had a really shocking title. It’s the original “WAP”. I was almost afraid to listen to it, weirdly, but I did. The lyrics are just bizarre too. Cobain screams “Marijuanaaaaaa” over and over. And the last part of the song just just a low, guttural “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”. It’s freaky to listen to, especially on really good speakers. So this song made an impression on me. If you think of it like a piece of art, it might remind you of the twisted paintings Kurt Cobain painted, of grotesque marionettes against psychedelic backgrounds. 

The Wizard Of Oz Character Study Soundtrack

I had for a long time wanted to make a soundtrack to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz using mostly goth music and such, but it took years to finally come to fruition, and it came to a fruition in a roundabout way. I like doing themed mixes about certain topics. I had one mixtape about fantasy that I drew a portrait of Princess Ozma on in 2019. Then in 2021 I did a mixtape with songs that were all about hearts, and drew the Tin Woodman on the cover. And over the next year and a half or so, the mixtapes kept coming. By the time I did the Scarecrow’s tape, Mind, I had a plan. I did one for each of the main characters, the Wizard, and the Wicked Witch of the West. The soundtracks can end up being more about the themes they represent than the characters themselves. They’re designed to be philosophical meditations. It ended up consisting of seven 90 minute mixtapes, and one corresponding146 song YouTube playlist so I could both share it and listen to it on the go. 

Lost 

Dorothy Gale; Themes: Lost, Home

“And yet I face this battle all alone. No one to cry to, no place to call home.” Alice in Chains - Nutshell

This tape goes to some dark places, but it has a happy ending. It represents the struggles of feeling lost in a strange unfamiliar place, alone, and not having a place to call home. It starts with a fan song about Return to Oz, appropriately enough. I borrowed a song from the 1985 Alice in Wonderland TV adaptation with “No Way Home”, wrong story but it works for Dorothy. “Overkill” through “Lost Woods” chronicles Dorothy’s time being lost in the forest, fleeing kalidahs and other dangers. “Colours” by Node is kind of a break in the narrative, but it does remind me of Dorothy, particularly the section:

“When I am in the blue country, I want to be yellow.

When I am in the yellow country, I want to be blue.

I just want to be me. 

I just want to be green.”

The song is by an Armenian coldwave artist, Node, and I feel like they’re talking about how it feels to be in the diaspora, belonging to two countries. The colored countries metaphor also really work for Oz of course. Yellow Country is Winkie Country and Blue Country is Munchkin Country. But Dorothy, for a while when she’s going back and forth between Oz and the real world, starts to feel like she belongs to both and at the same time neither, before she finally moves to Oz permanently. Perhaps it works better for the sequel books. 

After this we have another Armenian song, and this one is a tearjerker. Translated to English, we have lines like “birds make a nest where my home used to be”. Armenians were exterminated from their former homeland by the Turks, much of the old buildings left to ruins. We spent a lot of time being a homeless nation. Complimenting this song is “Something in the Way” by Nirvana, a song about being homeless and living under a bridge. The Yung Cortex song “Time Won’t Stop” has the line “My house doesn’t feel like it’s a home to me”. I feel that line deeply, since throughout my life, I have had very little control over my living arrangement. It never feels like my home, I’m always living under someone else’s roof, relying on their kindness and mercy. The Velvet Acid Christ song “Melting” is there because it includes voice samples from a very strange adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, which I think came from The Kentucky Fried Movie. Our last three songs are the happy ending. Back Road Vulture is a modern band which takes a lot of inspiration from Alice in Chains, which fits well with the next song “Don’t Follow” which has a kind of country twang to it that reminds one of Kansas, and “Home” by Smashing Pumpkins is a happy song about home. 

Side A

• Karlien - Return to Oz 
• Alice in Chains - Nutshell
• Telly Savalas - No Way Home
• The Foreign Resort - She is Lost
• The Wallflowers - One Headlight
• Stratovarius- Soul of a Vagabond
• Ministry - Overkill
• Kramm - Lost (note: this song got scrubbed from YouTube for some reason.)
• Forever Grey - Lost in a Moment

Side B

• The Cure - A Forest
• Vestron Vulture - Lost Woods
• Node - Colours
• Isabel Bayrakdaryan - Andouni (Homeless)
• Nirvana - Something in the Way
• Yung Cortex - Time Won’t Stop 
• Velvet Acid Christ - Melting
• Back Road Vulture - Home Today
• Alice in Chains - Don’t Follow
• Smashing Pumpkins- Home

Mind

The Scarecrow; Themes: The Mind, Mental Health

“My mind is an ocean of chaos.” Slow Danse with the Dead - Strangers in the Dark

This tape is a twisted journey into the dark recesses of the mind, tacking topics such as mental illness, drugs, and the very nature of consciousness. You come away from the mix wondering why, oh why, does the Scarecrow want a brain? It ends up having very little to do with the character himself, admittedly, and more about what he represents. A mix that allows our most complex organ to ponder itself.

Side A

• System of a Down - Mind
• Korn - Blind
• Nirvana - Breed
• Alice in Chains - I Can’t Remember
• And One - Take Some More
• Vomito Negro - Inside Your Brain
• We Are Temporary - Medication
• Carnal Machinery - Voices
• Node - Brain Fog

Side B

• Mortal Boy - Passion Dance
• Glaring - Consciousness 
• Infact - Fatal Error
• Haunt Me - Into the Black
• Lebanon Hanover - Northern Lights
• Buzz Kull - Existence 
• Pretty Addicted - Heather
• Desmond Doom - The Dissociation Song 
• Slow Danse with the Dead - Strangers in the Dark
• Cabaret Grey - Subconscious
• Phosphor - Skull
• Mystic Priestess - Small-Minded World

❤️ Heart ❤️ 

The Tin Woodman; Themes: Heart, Love

“Grey would be the color, if I had a heart.” Nine Inch Nails - Something I can Never Have

It’s really easy to find songs that mention the heart. No one really sings about the liver or the spleen. So of course, limiting a themed mix about the heart to just 90 minutes is a difficult task. I tried to throw in some songs that reminded me of the Tin Woodman himself too, of which there are quite a few. That said, I feel like the mix has less of a central thesis than some of the others do, perhaps because there are just so many songs about the heart. But the association between the heart and love is a recurring theme. I feel like love really has more to do with the brain than the heart, but it’s definitely a correlation that L. Frank Baum used in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. 

Anyway, we have some non-English tracks that I can explain. Rammstein’s “Mein Herz Brennt” translates to “My Heart Burns”. And in German, it has a different meaning than what we would think of heartburn. It means passion. And One’s “Für Zwei” is there because of the line “Mein herz, dein herz, ein herz.” Or, “My heart, your heart, one heart.” Sounds a lot better in German. And the second verse of the song “Averak”, a cover of a traditional Armenian song by Jrimurmur, translates to:

“You left, you took my heart away, you left fire instead.

Take away my countless hopes, you left a poor lamp,

Where instead of oil, my life burns in the ruins of my heart.

You, Yerevan, and I, Ani, you left me in ruins.”

To explain the context, Yerevan is the current capital of Armenia, a modern city of a million people, while Ani was the capital of Armenia in medieval times, and today is abandoned ruins, on the Turkish side of the border. 

I used Desmond Doom’s cover of “Heart-Shaped Box” in the style of The Cure, rather than the original by Nirvana, because the mix doesn’t really include rock music and it might sound out of place.

Side A

• Smashing Pumpkins- Cupid de Locke
• This Cold Night - Circuits
• Rammstein - Mein Herz Brennt
• [:SITD:] - Revelations
• Twin Tribes - Heart & Feather
• Michael Sembello - Automatic Man
• A Flock of Seagulls- Modern Love is Automatic 
• And One -Für Zwei
• Timecop 1983 - Back to You
• Ayria - Big City Lullaby 
• Tearful Moon - Heart is Fire

Side B

• Nine Inch Nails - Something I can Never Have
• The Midnight - Synthetic
• Jrimurmur - Averak
• Light Asylum - Heart of Dust
• Urbandoned - Only Heartache
• Silent Em - Pure Heart
• Slow Danse with the Dead - Heart of the Night
• Desmond Doom - Heart-Shaped Box
• Glaare - Your Hellbound Heart

Fear

The Cowardly Lion; Theme: Fear

“I’m a lion in a cage, and I cannot find my way out.” Minuit Machine - Lion in a Cage

This mix examines the concept of fear. How it can be limiting and petrifying, but at the same time, toward the end of the tape we get songs about how fear can be useful and positive. I started the tape with a sample from a speech by Bill the Butcher from the film Gangs of New York. “That’s what preserves the order of things. Fear.” It would be difficult to replicate this on the YouTube playlist version. The song “Lion in a Cage” by Minuit Machine had just been released before I made this tape, and it was perfect timing. Not too many songs out there about lions. Maybe it symbolizes how the Cowardly Lion’s courage was trapped in a cage, which symbolizes fear. The songs mainly cover different forms that fear takes. I ended up grouping together songs that had similar or the same names. Serj Tankian’s “Goddamn Trigger” is specifically about the type of fear and cowardice that leads conservatives to stockpile guns and ammo, something that is endemic to America. These type of people picture themselves as brave or tough, but in reality they’re cowards. They’re like cowardly lions.

And of course, I just had to stray from my goth/underground roots and include “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell. I think everyone likes that song. 

Side A

• Minuit Machine- Lion in a Cage
• Portrait- Coward
• Cross Chapel - Are you Afraid of the Dark?
• Scary Black - Are you Afraid of the Dark?
• Scry - Inhibition Exhibition 
• Pretty Addicted - Phobia
• Korn - No Place to Hide
• Serj Tankian - Goddamn Trigger
• David Bowie - Afraid of Americans
• Rockwell - Somebody’s Watching Me
• The Sound - I Can’t Escape Myself

Side B

• Gothic Archies - The World is a Very Scary Place
• El Ojo y la Navaja - Agorafobia
• Minuit Machine- Agoraphobia 
• New Haunts - Agora
• Bean Si - Nyctophobia
• Tearful Moon - Anxiety 
• This Fear - Haunting Me
• Masquerade- Panic Paranoia 
• Autumn Sonnet - Apparition 
• Sleepless - Fear is Your Friend
• Slow Danse with the Dead - Don’t Fear the Night
• Dimmu Borgir - Fear and Wonder

Lies

Oscar Diggs, The Wizard of Oz; Theme: Lies

“Magic only truly exists in one place: the human mind. None of this stuff is real, and none of it works.” Ministry - Believe Me

This tape gets hard and heavy, a lot of industrial metal songs are about lies, apparently. And the band Ministry sang about lies a lot, both before and after they went from synthpop to industrial metal. The themes on this mix are a meditation on how the corrupt politicians lie to the people in order to control them, how the media is inundated with lies and “fake news”, how religion is often built on lies, and how we lie to each other and ourselves. It’s an emotional roller coaster for me because I think about how people’s lies have impacted my own life and led me astray. The Wizard himself was a lying politician when he ruled the Emerald City, so the comparisons are appropriate. The songs that relate the most to the character himself are Voltaire’s “The Projectionist”, and Slow Danse with the Dead’s “False Guru”. The final song, “Acid Theatre” by The Kovenant, implores the listener, “never believe the lies they feed you, never do what they want you to do, never be who they want you to be”. And I think that was a fitting way to end the mix.

Side A

• Mortiis - The Great Deceiver
• Alice in Chains - The Devil put Dinosaurs Here
• Ministry - Disinformation 
• The Kovenant - Planet of the Apes
• Nine Inch Nails- Terrible Lies
• Digital Factor - Lies
• Slow Danse with the Dead - Happy Lies
• Death Loves Veronica - Lies
• Ministry - We Believe
• Kalte Nacht - Humans Are Mistakes

Side B

• Aurelio Voltaire - The Projectionist
• Ministry - I Wanted to Tell Her
• The Wasteland Wailers - Broken Wing Recital
• Type O Negative- Anesthesia
• Alice in Chains - Get Born Again 
• Slow Danse with the Dead - False Guru 
• Desmond Doom - I Could Have Lied
• Ministry - Believe Me
• The Kovenant- Acid Theatre

Wicked

The Wicked Witch of the West; Themes: Wickedness, Witchcraft, Feminine Societal Taboos

“Burn me at the stake again, I’ll take sinister revenge…I’m a woman and I’m wicked.” Twin Temple - “I’m Wicked”

Not to be confused with the book and stage musical by the same name. I thought I was going to be done with this mixtape series after Lies, but last October I by chance heard a song from the 1960s called “Season of the Witch” by Vanilla Fudge. I knew that I had to make a tape for the Wicked Witch of the West. I didn’t really have any deep themes to go with her though, but as I gathered songs about witchcraft, magic, and wickedness, an underlying theme emerged. This tape is really about how aspects of femininity, such as female sexuality, as well as paganism in general, are considered taboo and “wicked” by our puritanical Christian-dominated society. The Salem Witch Trials weren’t really about witches at all, but sexism, after all. In medieval Europe, elderly women who lived alone and followed the old pagan ways were feared, criminalized, and sometimes burned at the stake. Baum’s wicked witches are a holdover from this line of thinking, although he at least had the decency to include two “good” witches I suppose, being a feminist himself. So anyway, the theme emerged in a way I didn’t really intend when I started the mix, it was originally going to be spooky songs about witches and witchcraft with nothing deeper. But, it ended up being very relevant. Wickedness is subjective, evil can only be defined from a certain point of view.

On another note, the song “Smell the Witch” by Mortiis always reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West. It even has the line “Are you dead, when you are made of straw?” A Scarecrow reference, perhaps? Also, there are many appearances from the Satanic 1950s-style doo-wop band Twin Temple, introducing a genre absent from the other tapes. 

Side A

• Vanilla Fudge - Season of the Witch 
• Kat McKyte- Where Dead Angels Lie
• Mortiis- Smell the Witch
• Mick Smiley - Magic
• Domenico C - Need some Magic
• Howling Syn - Witches of Avalon
• Twin Temple- I’m Wicked
• Mortiis- Way too Wicked
• Lovers/Deceivers - Pickity Witch
• Svetlana Mart - Moon Eclipsed the Sun

Side B

• SpaceWitchPop - Black No. 1
• Mortiis - You Put a Hex on Me
• Twin Temple- I Know How to Hex You
• Ayria - Blue Alice
• SYZYGYX - Silent Spell
• Statiqbloom- Black Walks Eternal
• Raven Said - Aventis Vecordia
• Howling Syn- Black Moon
• Twin Temple- I am a Witch
• Omnia - Wytches Brew
• Dimmu Borgir- Spellbound

Falling Into Fantasy

Ozma of Oz; Themes: Fantasy, Dreams

“I’m falling into fantasy, the dream goes on.” Stratovarius - Falling into Fantasy

I first recorded this mixtape in early 2019, long before I had the idea for this Oz mixtape series. It was not long after I had first begun to read the sequels to the Oz books, in desperate need of escapism from my stressful call center job. Princess Ozma doesn’t appear until the second Oz book, and I’m glad to have some representation from the sequels on this series. She is the ideal ruler, ruling with love and kindness. She made Oz into a near-utopia when she took the throne, making it a moneyless, post-scarcity society, where sexism and all forms of bigotry are nearly nonexistent. Oz isn’t perfect, mind you, but it’s close. I dream of living in a place like that. A leader like her probably could only exist in fantasy. In fact, John Lennon’s song “Imagine” describes Oz perfectly, which is why I included it. It also helps that the song’s lyrics are referenced in Stratovarius’ “Fantasia”. The songs on this tape are all about fantasy and escapism in one way or another. A lot of symphonic power metal, not a lot of darkness, uncharacteristically for me of course. 

One last thing; as for the Hamshen Armenian song “Kuzim” I did a write-up on that song with translated lyrics on this blog in 2020. You can read that for more explanation.

Side A

• Stratovarius - Falling into Fantasy
• Kamelot - Center of the Universe
• Aurelio Voltaire - Riding a Black Unicorn 
• Dragonland - Neverending Story
• Theatre of Tragedy- Poppea
• Katil - Kuzim
• Stratovarius- Atlantis
• Stratovarius- Abyss
• Scissor Sisters - Return to Oz
• Ministry - Game Over
• The Midnight- Crystalline 
• Gunship - The Hegemon
• New Order - Dreams Never End

Side B

• Stratovarius- Fantasia
• John Lennon - Imagine
• Kamelot - Memento Mori
• Smashing Pumpkins- Galapagos
• Omnia - Fairy Tale
• Faun - Unicorne
• Kraftwerk - Tongebirge
• Opale - Sparkles and Wine
• Hybrid - Dreaming Your Dreams
• Smashing Pumpkins- Porcelina of the Vast Oceans

Two Original Songs By Me ~ My Would-be Music Career

Despite all the time I spend every day listening to music, I’m musically illiterate. I am like someone who loves to hear stories, kind of wants to write their own, but can neither read nor write. And I probably don’t have the room in my brain for that much new knowledge anymore. I mean I can sing at least. I usually only sing alone in my room, but I’ve had some positive feedback on my karaoke skills. 

I was in band class throughout Middle School and Freshman year of High School, during which I played the clarinet, but I was never good at it. My teacher knew it, and chastised me for every note I got wrong, humiliating me in front of the whole class. My classmates would then continue to mock and chastise me outside of class. I was too slow of a learner, I could never quite wrap my head around how to get the correct notes out of my clarinet at the right time. The rest of the class ended up advancing and I never did past a certain point. Probably because I had undiagnosed autism, making my teacher a subconscious ableist. I only stayed with it because my dad wanted me to, and for some reason I sought his approval at the price of being traumatized and having my self esteem destroyed by this awful teacher. Once a Creative Writing class opened up at my High School during my sophomore year I dropped band class for good and pursued that as far as I could pursue it, getting a Masters Degree in Creative Writing that I regret getting now, but hey it’s an achievement I guess. Anyway, that is why I never pursued music sooner. I was discouraged by an evil teacher. But I’ve been healing a lot in recent years, and trying to become more true to myself.

Maybe if I had the money and the time to learn to play I could do something with some synths or a bass guitar, or even just an acoustic guitar. I do come up with melodies in my brain, but I don’t write them down. I’ve written poetry numerous times though and I’ve even won some contests. I write my poems like song lyrics, because that’s my main influence. I don’t read a lot of poetry books (although I do love the occasional poem by Edgar Allan Poe, Sayat Nova, Bedros Tourian and Vahan Teryan, the latter three some legendary Armenian poets), but I read and listen to song lyrics all the time, every day. So I’ve tried my hand at writing actual songs twice so far, most recently today, but the last time I did it, I was working at the Macy’s call center in 2018 and living through my own personal hell. Today I just got bit by the poetry bug again I guess. Happens once in a while, then I go back to writing prose and comics like I normally do. But it’s been a while since I expressed myself like that.

If I were to make music, it would probably be a solo act. I don’t think I could find bandmates who would put up with me, and I wouldn’t expect to turn any kind of profit with my music, which they probably wouldn’t like. I would take the name Surenity, a play on my first name. If I go the synth route, I would make coldwave music. I like post-punk too but I would need the help of bandmates to really do post-punk with drums and a bass guitar. My influences would be Slow Danse with the Dead, Forever Grey, This Cold Night, and others like them, as well as the Armenian bands The Deenjes and Jrimurmur. The Deenjes and Jrimurmur have both taken traditional Armenian songs and modernized them, made them goth. That’s one thing I would do, I would write my own lyrics for some songs, but I would also take Armenian poems that are public domain and make them into coldwave songs. 

Alternatively, I could also go the acoustic rock route, and take influence from the live MTV Unplugged sets of Alice in Chains and Nirvana, as well as Kurt Cobain’s acoustic demo tapes, but with a goth flair. I would still sing in an low, brooding voice. There’s something to be said for raw, homemade music. That’s why I like listening to old demo tapes from bands I’m familiar with. I could become something like the YouTubers Leiv Reed and Alicia Widar, who mainly do acoustic covers with a few original songs. They have a very small but dedicated fanbase. If it’s just me sitting in my bedroom playing in front of a webcam, I’m okay with that. I don’t really want to be a rock star or anything. Fame is a vapor, the only earthly certainty is oblivion.

Alas, I’m too poor to afford instruments, and I don’t even know how I would learn to play them. This is all probably just another dream that may never come to fruition. Like how I wanted to be a DJ. Or a best-selling author. I mean, never say never and all that, I hopefully have several decades left in me, but, I dunno. If my music never gets any further than this blog, then so be it. Another scream into the abyss. Just use your imagination.

This first song, the one I wrote today, is about my chronic back pain, and how limiting it is to me, and how taxing it is on my mental health as well as my self image. It’s also about coming to terms with getting older. It probably sounds super depressing, but I’m just venting. It’s thoughts that go through my mind sometimes, not constantly. Imagine dark synths, electronic beats with echoing reverb, a low strumming bass guitar, and slow, droning baritone vocals.

Crippled Man

(Intro: electronic beat begins, then the eerie dark synth for about thirty seconds)

I don’t move anymore because of you.

A broken mind and body askew.

Creeping clawing up my spine

While I put on my mask and pretend I’m fine.

The world pulls down on me.

Crushed by its gravity.

It’s an awful reality.

People ruled by fear and greed.

Born into a hostile plane

How long have I been insane?

Crippled man

Man in black

Crippled man

Can’t go back.

(Music solo)

I can’t stand up. I can’t sit down.

I only feel peace when I’m alone.

Fighting the chaos in my mind

As a sledgehammer hits my spine.

Crippled man

Man in black

Crippled man

Can’t go back.

The world pulls down on me.

Crushed by its gravity.

It’s an awful reality.

People ruled by fear and greed.

Born into a hostile plane

How long have I been insane?

Crippled man

Man in black

Crippled man

Can’t go back.

(Bridge, instrumental section for about 30 seconds)

A soul trapped in a rotting shell

It’s tragic to think how far I fell.

Try to sleep the pain away

Only to face another day.

Crippled man

Man in black

Crippled man

Can’t go back.

Crippled man

Man in black

Crippled man

Can’t go back.

(Fade out)

Now as I mentioned, this next song was written while at my awful former call center job, as the lyrics will attest. This was a little over four years ago. I’m not in the mental space now that I was when I wrote this, thankfully. But I figured I might as well put a spotlight on this song too. Now obviously if I ever were to record it as an original song I would have to come up with my own tune, but it’s worth noting that I was heavily influenced by the song “Our Future is War” by Symtosis when I wrote it. But then again, I don’t think that I borrowed much if any of the lyric structure, that was just the background music going through my head as I wrote it. So I imagine this song as a heavy, dark electro, industrial type of song. Something like Velvet Acid Christ or Skinny Puppy. Maybe I would add some voice samples throughout if I could find some that were relevant. 

Dead Inside

Slave to the system

Serving those who oppress me

They scream and shout

They lash at me and beat me down

No will of my own

No freedom to be seen

I’m dead inside.

I’ve lost my hopes and dreams.

I’m dead inside.

I’ve become part of the machine.

I’m dead inside.

An automaton to be used and abused

I’m dead inside,

and I am only a machine.

Counting down the hours

To temporary relief.

Each moment wasted

Bringing me closer to death.

My life is a commodity 

To be bought and sold

Stealing every heartbeat 

Stealing every finite breath.

I’m dead inside.

I’ve lost my hopes and dreams.

I’m dead inside.

I’ve become part of the machine.

I’m dead inside.

An automaton to be used and abused

I’m dead inside,

and I am only a machine.

Graded on my usefulness,

Judged by my obedience.

I am but a cog

That is simple to replace.

Robbed of my identity,

No free will of my own,

I’ve become a mannequin 

Without a face.

I’m dead inside.

I’ve lost my hopes and dreams.

I’m dead inside.

I’ve become part of the machine.

I’m dead inside.

An automaton to be used and abused

I’m dead inside,

and I am only a machine.