I have a new song.

[Vulpes Namekaw]

And a great burden has been lifted.

http://home.mchsi.com/~cobaltfox/music/beaulife.mp3

This will be up for about a week or so, and then it gets replaced, so if you find that this link doesn't work, try replacing the "mp3" with "ogg".

There are a few bum notes, but nothing too jarring, I think.

Here are the lyrics:

Beautiful Life
(Matthew J. Johnson)
I don't understand how it got curtailed
And you found me standing
Dumb from visions
Cut throat
In what I feel is like a fairy tale
Did this happen?
Am I living at all again?
No-one knows, and I'm rummaging for ways to comprehend

Now when despairing that nothing could save my mind
I find that one belief
In the beauty of this life
I see it coming
Scarred eyes coming alight
Welcome me back to the sun-surrounded life

Away from the fires, torn dress shirts and bullet wounds
You might catch me dancing
Someone must have have
Said that
I needed to be near you
Foxes running
Let me take to the sky again
And let myself take hold the wings
that stretch across this life's lens

Now when despairing that nothing could save my mind
I find that one belief
In the beauty of this life
I see it coming
Scarred eyes coming alight
Welcome me back to the sun surrounding.

I believe it all
Because you mean it all to me

If all I need
Is just one thing to believe
The difference between just surviving and bleeding for the peace
Let me help you save the world

If all we have
Is just one world to belong
No heaven, hell, or anything but the earth we're living on.
We see it coming
It's gonna be all right.
We'll come back to life.

[Plastic Man]

i cant dl the song right now, but i will when i get home. great lyrics, i see definate jon anderson influences..i cant wait to get home and download it!

[Plastic Man]

i like that, you need a better microphone but its ok, and i like the music and chords, theyre really jazzy and stuff. nice work, i wanna hear some more of your material! could you tell us what instruments/recording techniques you used? and di you come up with the music or lyrics first?

[yes_angel]

keep up the good work Vulpes

[Vulpes Namekaw]

Originally posted by Plastic Man
i like that, you need a better microphone but its ok, and i like the music and chords, theyre really jazzy and stuff. nice work, i wanna hear some more of your material! could you tell us what instruments/recording techniques you used? and di you come up with the music or lyrics first?

I know. My mike sucks. :P It was a bargain. Strangely enough, it hasn't been a high priority for me.

I used pretty basic equipment for this song. All the instruments are MIDI sequenced, with the exception of the middle section with the piano and drums, which were played live. Because I don't have any fancy multitracking software, I had to record every track to its own separate .wav file, then reduce the volumes on all of them, mix them together, and basically use trial-and-error to get the best mix.

The song is taken from segments of old songs and a few new passages that were all patched together. Some of the segments had different keys and tempos at first, which provided a challenge in modifying them to form a coherent whole. Coherence was all in all one of the biggest problems I had with this. The verses are only featured in the first half of the song, the last half consisting of a mishmash of disjointed musical phrases, followed by a modification of the chorus. At first, the original chorus (which goes, "Now when despairing that nothing could save my mind, etc.") was going to be featured in the finale, with the vocals that appear there acting as a counterpoint. However, I decided against it, as I felt it would have become too confusing. I can make a mix of this, and you can judge it for yourselves, if you like.

The lyrics were not written until the instrumental tracks were mixed. In fact, I was in somewhat of a panic, thinking to myself, "oh dear, I have this great song, but I have absolutely no lyrics for it, and not a clue how I'm going to write them!" I didn't even have much of a melody to sing, anyway. XD Luckily, God willed it that I would write lyrics for this song, and they came out quite well, in my opinion.

I have other songs written, but they haven't been uploaded to my website yet. I will let you know when that gets done.

[Vulpes Namekaw]

I've changed my website, so now the song can be found at http://www.zencavern.com/music/beaulife.ogg