Sung Blog Sunday (of Sorts): Self-Portrait as Saturn

This isn't it.

 

 Under instruction from my friend Lucy to sing a scale and then improvise fifty seconds or so of opera dressed as a planet, I was assigned Saturn having a breakdown, and so here I am in a very thrown together costume (Saturn was sometimes portrayed carrying a scythe. I did not have a scythe), eating my children (in accordance with Myth) and threatening to issue brochures explaining why. My hope is you'll find it every bit as catchy as yesterday's Shepard Tone. I don't know who the painting above is by I'm afraid, but I found it here. Also, while we find ourselves in a macarbre vein, as followers on Instagram might have seen, I found on this morning's walk along Regent's Canal not one but two dismembered sets of pigeon wings still attached to each other. All explanations welcome.

"Thank you sir from 6 to God" - The Sound of the Summer with Auto-Generated Subtitles, plus Auto-Translation

 Four no-budget one-man productions of Shakespeare is all well and good, but nothing I make this year's going to top Je Suis Mermaid, so I thought I'd put that on youtube too, and am indebted to those who told me to check out the channel's auto-generated closed captions. (At least it got that I was speaking French). Here:

[Musique] À
Je suis ma m. J'habite à la merde. J'ai [Musique]
Laissé le temps au top. Je suis dans la merde.
À nous maintenant de six: Qu'est ce que c'est que tu fais aujourd'hui
À Cannes? De nos francs, dix marocain poisson à totino médecine gland.
Je suis ma m. J'habite à la mer.
Hays s'élève á tizi disquaire day one.
Approcher sakuma cheveaux gris mat à lieu à Kiev.
Merci Monsieur merci Monsieur mais il fait aussi fonction.
Merci Monsieur de six à dieu, c'est la mer et le
cadeau dinars mais Séguinaud lance
Marie vêtus de blanc. Merci monsieur [Musique]
Si ça dure [Musique]
Remercier monsieur vers ma chère.
Voilá merci monsieur français à dieu. [Musique]

 And for those who don't speak French, youtube also of course provide an auto-translation service:

[Music] At
I am my m. I live in shit. I have [Music]
Time left on top. I'm in shit.
To us now from six: What is it that you do today in Cannes?
Of our ten francs, Moroccan fish with totino medicine acorn.
I am my m. I live at the sea.
Hays amount to tizi record store day one.
Approach his mat gray hair sakuma takes place in Kiev.
Thank you sir thank you sir but it also works.
Thank you sir from 6 to God, it's the sea and the dinars gift
but séginuad launches
Marie dressed in white. Thank you sir [Music]
If it lasts [Music]
Thank you sir towards my dear.
Here is thank you French mister to God. [Music.]

Apparently Seginaud was a French cyclist. Obviously I love this.

Sung Blog Sunday! "cabbagewhite"

 Another track fresh today! Maybe a bit DJ Shadow-y? DJ Shoddy? Attempt enjoyment regardless, listeners, in this as in all things! (Cover art by Anne ten Dokelaar.)

Sung Blog Sunday! "Scrap Brain Zone"

 
 Hi, Unattendees, here's another one from the vaults. This one went into my one-man-show Jonah Non Grata but originated independently as a cabaret piece about thriteen years ago. It's freshly recorded tonight, and with terrible production, really terrible, I mean barely listenable, but attempt enjoyment regardless! (Scrap Brain Zone theme by Masato Nakamura. Top image from the Charlie Chaplin Image Bank.)

Sung Blog Sunday! "O, What a Spill"

 Look, nothing's going to beat "Je Suis Mermaid", I peaked too early. But ploughing on, here for the Ides of March is something older, sadder, and I've only just realised, also quite mermaidy. I came up with this dirge a few years ago while helping to devise shunt's The Boy Who Climbed Out Of His Face, a promenade through shipping containers inspired simultaneously by both Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies (whose cover I notice strongly resembles what audiences saw of Tom Lyall above)...

 It wasn't for me, but a suggestion of something Tom might sing from his island at the end. The guitar loop's based on a passage from Rosinni's "William Tell Overture" most familiar for accompanying sunrises in old cartoons. And Tom made his own brilliant work from it, a hypnotic piece lasting half an hour during which he would slowly undress (to look even more like the cover) six times an evening. Maybe all that background's best forgotten though. Like the song says, no questions. This was recorded tonight, with renewed apologies for still using a laptop mic. Still, attempt enjoyment, listeners! Cover art by Lynn Hatzius.

 

Sung Blog Sunday! "Je Suis Mermaid"

 My second bash at GarageBand, suggested by a conversation in the green room of the Crystal Maze with Catherine Davies, who also suggested rhyming "bleu" with "azure", and the line "I hear sailors are easy to scare", so big thanks, Catherine. I dip my toe into using loops here, but not equalizers, nor have I yet bought a mic. Attempt enjoyment, listeners! 

 (Cover art from George Leonnec below, and Weeki Wachee Spring's mermaid archive above, photographer and model unknown.)

Sung Blog Sunday! (I have discovered GarageBand.)

 Last night, I finally found out that my laptop had GarageBand. Or maybe I always knew that, maybe I only finally decided to start mucking around with it last night. Anyway, I'm not saying this will be a weekly thing, but here is Soundcloud User 90038426's my first ever GarageBand track (I've just worked out how to change the user name), inspired by grafitti I saw on Thursday (pictured below, artist unknown), and the evening stroll on which I saw it. Maybe I'm not really a writer, maybe I'm a singer. Let's find out. (Cover art by Klaus Bürgle.)