there ain’t no peace, no guarantees
so much for hope, we all still bleed
no other way that i can see
looks like i’m back in therapy

how many chords? don’t know any
a line of shit that they’ll believe
this should make long beach scream for me
i sure belong in therapy

the fucking lights are back on me
won’t cut through drunken apathy
i’ll never be ready
we’ll skip the four, now one, two, three

the world is fucked let’s fucking burn it down tonight
a touch from you would make the crazy shit alright
i’m just like you, i’m broken, angry, spoiled and white
us vs. the universe, they should’ve called the motherfuckin’ fight

send in the clowns, you fucking win
i’m climbing out of the trash bin
at least i’m not on heroin
or would that be more genuine?

my life has brought me to my knees
picture of incompetency
i give it all away for free
didn’t learn much in therapy

i’m still in pieces, as you see
Still can’t lose my virginity
I get this burning when I pee
I fucking quit, sing it for me

the world is fucked let’s fucking burn it down tonight
a touch from you would make the crazy shit alright
i’m just like you, i’m broken, angry, spoiled and white
us vs. the universe, they should’ve called the motherfuckin’ fight

2012 scott crawford. fuck copyright.

So, a couple of days ago, as I was cleaning out an old directory, I came across some of my music, and for the hell of it, I put it on and listened to it.

Some of it’s still very much “me”.

Some of it sounds like a Polaroid of me taken in 1990-something.

I don’t know that I’d want to still do that stuff 5-10 years from now, or maybe not even now, just because it’s not at all who I am anymore, and I’d feel like I was doing “Head Like A Hole” or something else that’s been rendered totally irrelevant in the present day by the passage of time and the number of times I’ve heard it. I don’t care if I get hit with They Changed It, Now It Sucks. I’m not going to do anything that I feel is a drag anymore. I’m not doing anyone any justice if I’m not enjoying myself. I can do difficult things, but I can’t do things that make me unhappy or disinterested, or that make me feel dishonest.

At the same time, I don’t want to do shitty adult contemporary music like everyone does at about minute 51 of their “Behind The Music”, despite one prediction years ago that I’d go in that particular direction.

I don’t really know what I want to do.

I love music, I love singing, I love composing, I’m not that big on playing instruments live (never have been, just not disciplined or interested enough), but I’m still sort of in limbo. I’ve been mostly incommunicado about things with the couple of people interested in making music with me, mostly because I don’t have any news or answers for them, and probably won’t for a while longer until I can set things up so I feel comfortable actually playing and making music somewhere.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here, really.

I was just struck by how different a person I am than the person who wrote and recorded those songs.

It’s been an interesting 5 years, since I recorded the last of what you’ve all heard of mine.

This Week: Fear 1, Me 0
Current Score: Me 38, Fear 26

I took steps to jumpstart my working on music this week, Harry Nilsson documentary be damned! (It is pretty great, but damn it anyway!)

One of the steps I took was to figure out what made me unhappy the last time I was making music on a regular basis, and resolve not to do those things, even if it makes me seem like a primadonna. I don’t want to make music to climb the food chain. If I’m going to make it, I’m going to make it for the joy of doing so. No joy, no music. If supposed “opportunities” are missed because they don’t seem like any fun to pursue, so be it.

That’s about it here, really. Tune in next time, when I talk about Thanksgiving (which should, knock wood, be fairly quiet and stress-free).

Bald Mountain Party by Richard C. Hackley and Scott Crawford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at: http://www.mybigblackcock.com/

This means you can play it on commercial and non-commercial radio, remix it, copy it for your friends, put it on your web site, whatever, as long as I am properly credited, this license information is included wherever you choose to put my music, and, if you sample it, remix it, etc., your music containing any part of my music must be released under this same license unless you contact me specifically to negotiate other terms that I agree to.

Here’s the song, in both 320k MP3 and WAV format. (Sorry, FLAC nerds, but you’ll just have to convert your own. Consider it your punishment for the years of y’all being snobby to people on torrent sites, while posting “lossless” copies of things like Sammy Hagar albums. As I’ve said in the past, “When you post Sammy Hagar albums to torrent sites, EVERYBODY loses”.)

Bald Mountain Party: 320k MP3 | WAV

Right-click these files (or Control-click it, on a Mac) and go to “Save as…” to save the. If you want to play them first to hear how they sound, click the play buttons next to the mp3 download links.

Bald Mountain Party
original music by Modest Mussorgsky, adapted by Richard C. Hackley (vocals and keyboards) and Scott Crawford (drum programming, sampling and mixing)
lyrics by Richard C. Hackley

It’s just a lifeless rock
where nothing ever grows
But ev’ry Halloween
a strange event unfolds

Bald Mountain party
Bald Mountain party
Bald Mountain party

No living thing goes near
Bald Mountain party
Even the vultures fear
Bald Mountain party

The party starts at night
attended by the dead
Who frolic in the dark
while humans are in bed

Bald Mountain party
Bald Mountain party
Bald Mountain party

The spooks and skeletons
the ghosts and goblins
They gather at this place
most of them float in

They leap and dance about
a deep and fiery pit
And in the jostling
some of them fall in it.

But no one cares ‘cuz it’s their type of fun
They know it ends with the morning sun

Mayhem and wild abound
Bald Mountain party
No sign of letting down
Bald Mountain party

Some of the creatures fly
up high above the rest
They see an evening meal
and snatch a party guest

That’s how this party goes
there is no courtesy
And everybody knows
“Don’t turn your back on me!”

But when the day begins
Bald Mountain party
This party always ends
Bald Mountain party

‘Cuz they can’t stand the light.

Some info about this song: this is the song that took 143 years to finish, 4 plus of which were my fault! Thank you to Richard, first and foremost, for being patient with me while I took my sweet time on things. The first mention in my inbox of this most unlikely collaboration of ours in my inbox was on April 30th, 2006. That whole “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” thing applies here. Ironically, Modest Mussorgsky’s “Night On Bald Mountain”, the framework we stretched our song over, also had its share of problems getting finished and released to the public. Mussorgsky didn’t live to hear his composition performed, in fact. Rich and I have at least heard the finished product, and will hopefully live for a good while past it, so we may come out ahead here, knock wood.

My contributions to the song were the drums, all the weird, scratchy, panned out sounds you hear, and I also spent a fair amount of time getting the mix to where it is right now, which mostly involved making Richard’s awesome harmony vocals come to life as the monsters you hear them as now, and staying the hell out of the way of the original piece as much as I could. I gave some serious thought to additional instrumentation, but decided not to put my foot through a Van Gogh, so to speak. Maybe if we do remixes, I’ll have another go at it. Hopefully, you all enjoy what we came up with.

And now, for a bit more on the song, I turn the floor over to the man, the myth, the legend…Richard Hackley.

“Around 2000, I started pondering writing some songs based on the questions, “What if famous composers from history had been prolific song writers instead? What would their famous works sound like in song form? What would their lyrics say?” What held me back from actually putting something together was taking the time to do necessary research of a composer, his life, times, passions, etc. Then, a couple of on-going things dovetailed together.

It’s been a slow and arduous labor for both of us. But, if the child is indeed a bastard, we are both happy with him.”

From here, as mentioned earlier this week, I still need to re-record the vocals on “If I Could” and the slow “Something True” to finish the “babykiller.” album. Gonna try and get this stuff done before the Mayan calendar ends so I can get on with my life and maybe finish writing/record/release some new songs, perhaps even perform some of them live.

While I’ll be doing all of this free of any kind of mandatory charge, and I think I’m going to move forward with that plan for the rest of the time I’m making music, donations of any size above $1.00 USD (below that, and PayPal fees make your donation kind of useless, sadly; if you want to give me less than a dollar, do it in person) are greatly appreciated. Donations will enable me to compensate the people who work on this music with me as best I can (in this case, if you’d like part of your donation to go to Richard, please say “for Bald Mountain Party” on the PayPal form), as well as perform much-needed repairs and upgrades on my aging home studio. Ideally, this will result in more music being made and released, though I’m trying to take this music thing one tiny act at a time these days. In the meantime, thanks in advance for your continuing support, as well as for all the support you’ve given my music and I over the years. As always, if you have any questions about this release or anything else, suck@mybigblackcock.com. For any questions directed to Richard, he can be reached at richardhackley@mybigblackcock.com, or you can contact him via his Soundclick page.

Obsolete by Scott Crawford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at: http://www.mybigblackcock.com/

This means you can play it on commercial and non-commercial radio, remix it, copy it for your friends, put it on your web site, whatever, as long as I am properly credited, this license information is included wherever you choose to put my music, and, if you sample it, remix it, etc., your music containing any part of my music must be released under this same license unless you contact me specifically to negotiate other terms that I agree to.

Here’s the song, in both 320k MP3 and WAV format. (Sorry, FLAC nerds, but you’ll just have to convert your own. Consider it your punishment for the years of y’all being snobby to people on torrent sites, while posting “lossless” copies of things like Sammy Hagar albums. As I’ve said in the past, “When you post Sammy Hagar albums to torrent sites, EVERYBODY loses”.)

Obsolete: 320k MP3 | WAV

Right-click these files (or Control-click it, on a Mac) and go to “Save as…” to save the. If you want to play them first to hear how they sound, click the play buttons next to the mp3 download links.

Obsolete
Music and lyrics by Scott Crawford
Bass by Kage Hopkins

I used to be a novelty
paranoid child
when aggression was in fashion, drove the little girls wild
They evolved, outgrew “the truth”, but I remained the same

So you’re tired of “reality”?
The Man has heard your cries
gave you cookie cutter demigods with anime eyes
“cute and fully poseable, vapid and disposable”
never be a man like the bastard I am

Can you take me to a time
when opinion ain’t a crime
and the girls will spread their legs for a ringing voice of anger?

Clarity is gone
it’s rebellion.com
and there’s no place in this world for a ringing voice of anger

And I still remember honey on your body and mine
chains were holding us together, but for once, it felt fine
we’re different people now, but some things never go away, yeah

Well, the word came down from heaven
I’ll be going on trial
gonna try to euthanize me, evidence of denial
“Let’s put him on a stage and see just how much he can take;
make him pay for all his actions, make him live with his mistake”

Can you take me to a time
when opinion ain’t a crime
and the girls will spread their legs for a ringing voice of anger?

Clarity is gone
it’s rebellion.com
and there’s no place in this world for the voice of truth

I want to spill my guts on you
make you all feel just like I do
You like your martyrs saccharine sweet?
My way of life is obsolete

Nobody wants me, it eats me alive
and I am so out of focus, I feel like I’m blind
Been through five years of heartache, and 10 years of lies
and I’m just so broken up inside

Will the world ever listen to anyone sane?
I wish someone would douse the fire in my brain
At the end of my rope, as I choke on my pride
and I’m just so goddamn dead inside

Can you take me to a time
when opinion ain’t a crime
and the girls will spread their legs for a ringing voice of anger?

Sanity is gone
It’s a fucking atom bomb
and there’s no place in your world for the voice of truth

I want to kill myself for you
make you all bleed just like I do
and though your gods will taste defeat
my fucking life is obsolete

my fucking life is obsolete

my fucking life is obso-

Some info about this song: this is another one that came together lyrically in about 5 minutes, and took 10 years plus to finally call “finished”. Some of it was recorded here, but most of it was recorded in a duct taped together home studio in Texas. There are almost no actual chords used on the guitar (which was a beaten up electric 12 string with 5 strings on it, run through a distortion pedal with a dying battery). Instead, notes were layered and transposed where chords, or a facsimile of them, were needed. The song’s a bitch to sing live, but I have done it a few times, and the vocals you hear here were all, for better or worse, from a single take.

From here, I’ll finally be releasing my long-awaited collaboration with Richard Hackley soon if Richard and I can just let go and release it into the wild, and I still need to re-record the vocals on “If I Could” and the slow “Something True” to finish the “babykiller.” album. Gonna try and get this stuff done before the Mayan calendar ends so I can get on with my life and maybe finish writing/record/release some new songs, perhaps even perform some of them live.

While I’ll be doing all of this free of any kind of mandatory charge, and I think I’m going to move forward with that plan for the rest of the time I’m making music, donations of any size above $1.00 USD (below that, and PayPal fees make your donation kind of useless, sadly; if you want to give me less than a dollar, do it in person) are greatly appreciated. Donations will enable me to compensate the people who work on this music with me as best I can, as well as perform much-needed repairs and upgrades on my aging home studio. Ideally, this will result in more music being made and released, though I’m trying to take this music thing one tiny act at a time these days. In the meantime, thanks in advance for your continuing support, as well as for all the support you’ve given my music and I over the years. As always, if you have any questions about this release or anything else, suck@mybigblackcock.com.

I told you I was bringing back music stats. The question is, do you care?

Zenova: 161
Tonight: 134
Sybil Instrumental: 130
Puppet: 128
Wolftab: 127
Something In My Drink: 127
Ecstacy: 127
Sybil: 115
Sybil (version): 100
New Song: 84
Untitled: 83
Something True (Overnightscape): 73
Something True: 70
Love Life And Sign: 69
The Scott Crawford Show: 68
Chord: 67

I’m amazed that Baidu respected my robots.txt file, but they did, and I’m working with a far more realistic picture of what the music’s traffic is now. Slower here, of course, but way more realistic, which is also way more helpful.

I will be trying to get “Obsolete” back up over the weekend, like I’ve been saying I’d do for a while. In the meantime, Drop me a line if you’re out there listening and like what you hear.

Thank you for another month of your continued interest and support, and by all means, even if you can’t or won’t donate (the button’s right below this paragraph), please add my page on Facebook, as well as the page for my other band Get Precious.

We’ve got a clean month ahead (February started out with some Baidu traffic), so I’ll start posting them again now that I’ve got a slightly more accurate picture of what’s doing. Amazingly, contrary to reports I’ve heard previous to this, excluding Baidu on robots.txt actually worked, or is at least working at the moment.

Also: “Obsolete” is going to be posted very soon, I swear.

Baidu traffic went crazy in January (3000-ish plays for “Wolftab”? No way!), so I’m going to change our robots.txt, see if Baidu actually honors it (they’re notorious for ignoring excludes), and proceed from there. Hopefully, at some point, we have a realistic picture of what’s going on here. Stay tuned…

“Here, my dear.”

I should be posting “Obsolete” soon, in its current state. I made peace with it, and want to get to the present day at some point in my life.

Man, either the bots like the alt.abortion stuff, or it’s catching on in some part of the world:

December:

Zenova: 932
Wolftab: 690
Something In My Drink: 680
Love Life And Sign: 558
Puppet: 343
Tonight: 281
Something True: 259
Sybil: 248
The Scott Crawford Show: 242
Ecstacy: 203
Sybil Instrumental: 202
Something True (Overnightscape): 177
New Song: 165
Untitled: 159
Sybil (version): 156
Chord: 154

Total:

Zenova: 3522
Wolftab: 2520
Something In My Drink: 2137
Ecstacy: 1984
Sybil: 1974
Tonight: 1743
Sybil Instrumental: 1728
Untitled: 1632
Love Life And Sign: 1627
Puppet: 1620
Sybil (version): 1323
The Scott Crawford Show: 1234
Something True: 1049
Chord: 1040
New Song: 1010
Something True (Overnightscape): 848

The usual lack of specific data accompanies these numbers. Y’all know the drill. Drop me a line if you’re out there listening and like what you hear. Those of you who are fans of this stuff will be pleased to know, in the meantime, that the New Year brings 2 new synths (new to me, anyway) and a returning synth to my renovation-in-progress studio, so hopefully, I’ll be getting started on some stuff with those soon.

Thank you for another month of your continued interest and support, and by all means, even if you can’t or won’t donate (the button’s right below this paragraph), please add my page on Facebook, as well as the page for my other band Get Precious.

Big jump forward in raw numbers! I’m thinking that Bing’s catching on, whether we want it to or not, since a lot of those hits came from Bing.

November:

zenova: 915
ecstacy: 858
untitled: 563
wolftab: 452
tonight: 414
love life and sign: 314
puppet: 312
something true: 272
something in my drink: 261
the scott crawford show: 245
sybil: 196
sybil inst: 188
something true (overnightscape): 183
sybil vers: 173
new song: 169
chord: 124

total:

zenova: 2577
wolftab: 1830
ecstacy: 1761
sybil: 1726
sybil inst: 1526
untitled: 1473
tonight: 1462
something in my drink: 1457
puppet: 1277
love life and sign: 1069
sybil vers: 1067
the scott crawford show: 992
chord: 886
new song: 845
something true: 790
something true (overnightscape): 671

Still not much real input on who’s listening to what and why (really, these could all be bot hits; whichever…), because I did go with the “give it away and pray” model here, but that’s fine, because as I’ve said before, the other option involves annoying people. As a consumer, I don’t like to be annoyed, so I can’t see the point of promoting a product in a way that would annoy me if someone else were selling it to me. As for what’s being done on my end, the “rebuild the studio” project took a big step forward this week, because I redid things in a way that gives me a ton more workspace. Workspace is our friend. So, we’re inching ever closer to finishing the album, finishing some of the other projects I have laying around here and getting started on some Get Precious work.

Thank you for another month of your continued interest and support, and by all means, even if you can’t or won’t donate (the button’s right below this paragraph), please add my page on Facebook, as well as the page for my other band Get Precious.

6 months of free music! Crazy shit.

October:

something in my drink: 389
wolftab: 380
zenova: 260
sybil: 207
tonight: 198
love life and sign: 186
something true: 199
sybil inst: 179
puppet: 175
the scott crawford show: 169
something true (overnightscape): 168
ecstacy: 143
untitled: 142
chord: 138
sybil vers: 137
new song: 132

total:

zenova: 1662
sybil: 1530
wolftab: 1378
sybil inst: 1338
something in my drink: 1196
tonight: 1048
sybil vers: 994
puppet: 965
ecstacy: 923
untitled: 910
chord: 762
love life and sign: 755
the scott crawford show: 747
new song: 676
something true: 518
something true (overnightscape): 488

Fell *just* short of my goal of 500 plays/downloads for every track (12 short on the live “Something True”, but I’m 18 ahead on the studio one, so that must mean something, right?), but traffic’s been steady, and songs that didn’t do well in other months did well in this one. In total, even if plenty of them are bot hits (and I’m sure they are), there’ve been over 15,000 attempts to access the songs I have on my web site in 6 months. If you’re one of the humans or even one of the bots who’ve done so, I’d love an email telling me who you are, what you thought of the music, or whatever you’d like to tell me.

Donations are still very quiet since the initial batch of ‘em, but again, this is about giving back to music, not just about taking from the people who listen to it. I have the resources, limited though mine are in general, to do this, so I’m doing it. I did put together a list of all of my donors to date, and that will be added to the liner notes for “babykiller.” once I finish rebuilding my studio setup and do the last 2 songs. That’s still a little ways off in terms of both time and money, but it’s coming.

Thank you for another month of your continued interest and support, and by all means, even if you can’t or won’t donate (the button’s right below this paragraph), please add my page on Facebook, as well as the page for my other band Get Precious. It’ll make us HWET.

I bet you thought I forgot about this. Either that, or you didn’t give much of a rat’s ass. “But, sir! I only have this small part of a rat’s ass to spare on this Saturday morning! Please don’t use the curling iron on me!”

September:

zenova: 258
sybil: 258
the scott crawford show: 255
wolftab: 248
something true (overnightscape): 207
ecstacy: 195
something in my drink: 193
sybil inst: 190
puppet: 188
tonight: 178
something true: 161
sybil vers: 146
love life and sign: 145
untitled: 138
chord: 122
new song: 121

total:

zenova: 1415
sybil: 1323
sybil inst: 1159
wolftab: 998
sybil vers: 857
tonight: 850
something in my drink: 807
puppet: 790
ecstacy: 780
untitled: 768
chord: 624
the scott crawford show: 578
love life and sign: 569
new song: 544
something true (overnightscape): 320
something true: 319

Some songs move up the list, some songs move down the list. You know how it goes. By next month, barring any new releases (and I really wanted to get at least one out in October, but I’m not sure how logistically possible that is, as I haven’t even started ripping my studio apart or digging up raw tracks yet), every song on this list will probably have been played or downloaded at least 500 times by something, human or robot. That’s kinda cool. No more news on the donor front, but that’s OK. Donate if you like, don’t if you don’t or can’t afford to. A lot of my doing this is a matter of giving something back to music, which has given me so much. Speaking of donors, I’m still slacking on digging up my PayPal transactions to create a proper donor list for the liner notes, but it is still on the to-do list and I haven’t forgotten about doing it. Been a weird, busy, in some ways rough month, so it’s something I just haven’t gotten to yet. Soon. Thank you for another month of your continued interest and support, and by all means, add my page on Facebook, as well as the page for my other band Get Precious. It’ll make us feel all warm and squishy inside.

It’s that time of the month again! No, I’m not menstruating, silly! I’m a bloke! It’s time for some stats from the music department!

August:

zenova: 328
sybil: 264
sybil inst: 242
tonight: 241
the scott crawford show: 230
love life and sign: 228
wolftab: 207
new song: 199
sybil vers: 196
something in my drink: 184
untitled: 181
ecstacy: 164
puppet: 163
chord: 162
something true: 158
something true (overnightscape): 113

total:

zenova: 1157
sybil: 1065
sybil inst: 969
wolftab: 750
sybil vers: 711
tonight: 672
untitled: 630
something in my drink: 614
puppet: 602
ecstacy: 585
chord: 502
love life and sign: 424
new song: 423
the scott crawford show: 323
something true: 158
something true (overnightscape): 113

Some of the songs that did great on plays last month dropped considerably, but some of the ones that have been slow movers jumped some from last month’s numbers, which is good to see. The newer songs are doing well, especially “Something True”, which did really good numbers in less than half the month. Again, I have no idea where these songs are going to or who’s listening to them (my biggest non-Google contributors are Bing and Baidu, so I’m guessing a lot of this traffic is Asian). I read things that people like Trent Reznor say about how you should require an email address from people to let them download, but in my mind, 99% of all email I’ve ever gotten from the mailing lists of musicians has been spam, so I really don’t subscribe to that logic. Plus, I think people who are serious about music use other ways to track artists (last.fm, iLike, artist pages on MySpace and Facebook, etc., and more and more, I’m finding from my discussions with folks about music, people are returning to artists’ actual web sites) that are targeted better. I’ve got some concerns about vital demographic info being hosted in places I don’t have full control over, but I also do pretty regular exports of that data whenever possible. The bottom line is, the fewer hoops people have to jump through to hear my stuff, the better. If it’s just getting hits and not getting heard, so be it. That’s what I have a hosting account with decent bandwidth limits for.

As far as donations go, it’s been dead silent since the first month. Again, not a shock in rough economic times. Donations are kinda like a “dead air” deal anyway. They’re abstract. This isn’t to say that they’re not appreciated, but I can totally understand folks’ apprehension about making them so far, even if they have the money. It’s a one-way transaction, or it was, anyway. As of right now, and this extends back to past donations, if you’ve donated money to me and you’d like to be thanked on the liner notes of my album, “babykiller.”, when it’s finished, drop me a line. I’ve got records of all of your past donations…somewhere…but to be sure, drop me a line. Alternately, if you donated and absolutely DO NOT want to be thanked on my liner notes for whatever reason, drop me a line for that as well. I have pretty fond memories of reading the tiny liner notes on my cassettes as a kid, though, thinking about how cool it’d be if I were thanked on the liner notes of “Appetite For Destruction” or whatnot, so I’m thinking that the least I can do here for your continued support is make y’all feel even just a fraction of that. I’ve got no immediate plans to release “babykiller.” on cassette, but you know, shit, I could make some homemade, signed ones when the album’s done if folks are interested. Let me know on that. People get all hepped up about vinyl, but I grew up a tape guy. I’d have to figure out where side 1 ends and side 2 begins on what’s currently a single, long-form work, but I think I should do that anyway. It feels like cheating not to have a side 1 and a side 2.

Anyway, I’m just sorta thinking out loud at this point, so I’ll leave you to your business, and thank you for another month of your continued interest and support. Oh, and one more thing. If you’re on Facebook, stop by not just my page there, but also the page for my other band Get Precious and become fans of both. It’ll make us feel all warm and squishy inside. OK, here’s the get thanked on the liner notes of “Appetite For Destruction” button. More next month on the music, or when more music’s ready.

I’m a few weeks later than I wanted to be with this one, but better late than never, right?

Something True by Scott Crawford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at: http://www.mybigblackcock.com/

This means you can play it on commercial and non-commercial radio, remix it, copy it for your friends, put it on your web site, whatever, as long as I am properly credited, this license information is included wherever you choose to put my music, and, if you sample it, remix it, etc., your music containing any part of my music must be released under this same license unless you contact me specifically to negotiate other terms that I agree to.

Here’s the song, in both 320k MP3 and WAV format. (Sorry, FLAC nerds, but you’ll just have to convert your own. Consider it your punishment for the years of y’all being snobby to people on torrent sites, while posting “lossless” copies of things like Sammy Hagar albums. As I’ve said in the past, “When you post Sammy Hagar albums to torrent sites, EVERYBODY loses”.)

Something True: 320k MP3 | WAV

As a bonus, here’s the “slow” version of Something True, recorded live at The Overnightscape on December 29th, 2005. Thanks again to Frank Edward Nora and his lovely wife Denice for having me by the studio, and for providing us with this clip.

Something True (live at The Overnightscape): 320k MP3 (This one may sound less-than-320, as I’m pretty sure we transcoded it from a lower bitrate, and it was also recorded rather quickly without overdubs. There’s a weird static to it, but I find it charming.)

Part of the reason it took me so long to post this song had to do with my possibly foggy recollection of having recorded a studio version of the “slow” “Something True” here, but my searches through my archives don’t seem to bear that out. I’m guessing that if it did exist, it was lost in my one major drive failure. Ah well, one more thing to re-record.

Right-click these files (or Control-click it, on a Mac) and go to “Save as…” to save the. If you want to play them first to hear how they sound, click the play buttons next to the mp3 download links.

Something True
Music and lyrics by Scott Crawford

well I’m nearing the edge
and I don’t know what the fuck to do
‘cuz all I want is something true
just a sign this old man isn’t through

but I’m bored with everything
I don’t know what to sing
I haven’t got the game to bring
would you set fire to my broken wings

spinning heads and flashing lights
will this be like every night
breaking me down and destroying my faith
do good things come to those who wait

now I’m down on my hands and knees
my heart’s pissing razor blades
wasn’t I supposed to have it made by now
all my wildest dreams betrayed

still I scratch and I claw and I bleed
my spirit is black and blue
as I dig through the wreckage for something true
and I wanna believe that I’m lookin’ for you

something true
do I want you
are we through
is it true
tell you what I want

I want nothing
I want something true
I’m having trouble separating the two
and I came and I saw and I came again
I got too much time on my hands

I’ve got nothing
to offer you
nothing else but something true
but if you’ve got the strength to believe what I say
then I’ll bring you the world at your feet every day

Some info about this song: the bulk of the lyrics were originally ad-libbed by me over the top of some other music done by a band I auditioned for. Yeah, that all kind of came out because I had no idea what to sing, and I even said so in the song. The band complained that they couldn’t hear what I was saying, they went in a different direction singer-wise, we had a lovely dinner afterward and I thankfully remembered virtually all of what I sang long enough to make this. This recording sounds fuller than it has any right to, considering that it consists solely of one vocal track, 1 piano track, a bassline and a snare drum. Couldn’t you swear that there’s more going on there drumwise? Me too, and I made it. Go figure. I came up with the “slow” version of the song about a year later, and both will be on “babykiller.” I’ve performed both live in front of audiences, but mostly the original, fast version. Typically, I sing the second to last line differently live, though. I sing it as: “but if you can believe…all the things I say”, because damn it, what I wrote originally is a mouthful, and I end the slow version with “then I’ll give you the world…I’ll give you the world…”

From here, it gets interesting, because I’m out of “finished enough” tracks to post. I need to redo my home studio (suggestions for solid studio environments that aren’t crazy-making in either Mac or Windows format are welcome), finish off the few “babykiller.” tracks what need finishing (For example, the vocal track on “If I Could” needs some serious help) and finish my long-awaited collaboration with Richard Hackley (nope, not kidding; just needs some tightening up in the mix, maybe). It may be a little while before another song appears, but stay on me and I’ll finish things.

While I’ll be doing all of this free of any kind of mandatory charge, and I think I’m going to move forward with that plan for the rest of the time I’m making music, donations of any size above $1.00 USD (below that, and PayPal fees make your donation kind of useless, sadly; if you want to give me less than a dollar, do it in person) are greatly appreciated. Donations will enable me to compensate the people who work on this music with me as best I can, as well as perform much-needed repairs and upgrades on my aging home studio. Ideally, this will result in more music being made and released, though I’m trying to take this music thing one tiny act at a time these days. In the meantime, thanks in advance for your continuing support, as well as for all the support you’ve given my music and I over the years. As always, if you have any questions about this release or anything else, suck@mybigblackcock.com.