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A Merry Texas Christmas

21 Friday Dec 2018

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I wanted to share this earlier in the week, but in addition to being busy, the darn song just wasn’t ready. There was a whole verse that had a rhyme scheme that didn’t match the rest, so I needed to play around with it. I don’t need finished products when sharing lyrics I’ve written, but I like it to feel like it could be finished.

As you might imagine, “A Merry Texas Christmas” should have a bit of a country twang, but not too much, because not all of us have a strong accent. I do only some of the time, and it’s usually a choice rather than my default. Although ‘y’all’ is kind of a given.

A MERRY TEXAS CHRISTMAS

I can count on one hand having snow on Christmas.
Even being cold is a coin toss to lose
If I’m not cold and snug Christmas morning
I have to confess, that’s not the Christmas I choose.

Chorus:
They set up the lights before November is gone
Advent wreaths burn candles down into one
Everyone wishes for snow, then wishes for sun
And that’s a Merry Texas Christmas.

Santa wears cowboy boots to deliver our toys.
We drink our hot chocolate then bring out the egg nog
Armadillos and cacti with penguins and wintery joys.
And the Christ candle burns instead of a Yule log.

Tamales and chili, dinner Christmas Eve,
And pecan and pumpkin for Christmas Day pies.
We turn on the fire and crank the A/C
Everyone knows when it’s Christmas, everyone lies.

It’s part of the magic
The magic of Christmas
The magic of a Texas Christmastime, y’all.

Chorus:
Light shows draw crowds into neighborhood streets.
For once the huge churches fill all of their seats.
We pray for our peace and we do our good deeds.
And that’s a Merry Texas Christmas.

We scream Merry Christmas so everyone hears it.
We forget why we do it, like everyone else.
We fight over words and holiday spirit.
But in the end, we do it like nobody else.

I’ve only ever known a Texas State Christmas.
Our star of wonder is often the star on our flag.
For many long years, a Texas State Christmas,
Yet as years have gone by, I often feel sad.

Chorus:
But the lights fill the streets when the evenings are long.
Both radio and churches swell with Christmas-y songs.
Everything’s right even when everything’s wrong.
And that’s a Merry Texas Christmas.

Cats Don’t Care About Christmas

11 Tuesday Dec 2018

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This next song arose from an offhand comment from my dad while I was talking with him last year about not really getting in the spirit of Christmas anymore, yet writing Christmas songs anyway. He followed it up with, “Hey, that would make a great Christmas song, wouldn’t it?” I wrote it in my head all the way home from dinner that night.

It’s silly af, but cat lovers should have some fun with it.

CATS DON’T CARE ABOUT CHRISTMAS

Cats don’t care about Christmas
They yowl and meow asking where their food is
They don’t know what time of year it is
Oh, cats don’t care about Christmas.

They sleep in our mangers and hang in our stockings
They don’t want the presents, they just want the boxes
They bat at the ornaments and chew on our bows
And why they kill Christmas trees, nobody knows.

Cats don’t care about Christmas
They hide and decide that they don’t need us
They hate and tolerate the costumes and kisses
Oh, cats don’t care about Christmas.

They throw up on tree skirts and pee in the guest rooms
They run for no reason from bedroom to bedroom
They climb onto our laps when we’re warm and we’re lazy
But while we try to make everything perfect, they’re crazy.

They shake off the jingle bells and won’t pose for pictures
They won’t pay attention to stories or scriptures
We hide all the tinsel. We can’t keep poinsettias.
We want so much to love them, and sometimes they let us.

Cats don’t care about Christmas
They purr and prowl, kill us with false sweetness
Pretend they’re the angel atop the tree to deceive us
Oh, cats don’t care about Christmas.

Missing Christmas

04 Tuesday Dec 2018

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I don’t have seasonal affective disorder. I actually experience the reverse, my mood becoming measurably better when it’s darker and colder outside and worse when it gets warm and bright.

But something happens to Christmas as you grow up, and it’s something that made the holidays difficult for roughly the last ten years. Both the spiritual and the secular sides suffered. In fact, it’s only just this year that I kind of got back into the spirit. I put up most of the Christmas decorations at home. At work, I’m decorating my cubicle in a Nightmare Before Christmas theme, which was a spontaneous decision that I’m really enjoying. I’m a Halloween-all-year kind of girl, so it fits my personality.

Christmas music is the one thing that’s been a constant through the ennui. With music on my mind, I wrote down a lot of these feelings about Christmas that people just don’t seem to talk about, especially when it comes to singletons and people who aren’t churchgoers. Sure, sometimes I feel like the Grinch (don’t most of us grow up into the Grinch?), but really, I’m more sad than angry. However, I think letting go of what Christmas used to be has helped me enjoy it in my new ways.

MISSING CHRISTMAS

As a child, I saw Santa through the open bedroom door
Sick with excitement at what morning had in store
I saw in him in the darkness, which fueled my belief
Of magical reindeer who come when you sleep

Half-eaten carrots and hoofprints on snow
Once you spot the lies they only start to grow
When magic becomes just another sleight of hand
One starts to wonder where Christmas should stand

The stories repeat so often, I know them by heart.
Growing up without children, I’ve no longer a part
Meaningless, meaning less every year
And now Christmas seems like every other part of the year, I fear…

The moment I stopped looking for Christmas
Was the same time the magic died
Its epitaph written in my attic-lost tree
I mourn for the death of a magical time

I love buying gifts for my family and friends
Receiving doesn’t matter much after it ends
The truth is I lost Christmas a long time ago.
I’ve struggled to find it again, but I know…

That feasts, friends, and families simply don’t
Make the time any more magical, the season just won’t
Reach as far inside of me as it did once before
When magic and miracles brought hope to my door

Half-eaten carrots and hoofprints on snow
Once you spot the lies they only start to grow
When magic becomes just another sleight of hand
One starts to wonder where Christmas should stand.

A ‘Christmas’ Song

27 Tuesday Nov 2018

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Last December, I thoroughly amused myself by writing Christmas songs, my first forays into lyric-writing and the inspiration behind this year’s push. Some of them are funny, some of them are sad, some more atmospheric than substantive.

Or in the case of “A ‘Christmas’ Song,” thoroughly ironic.

A ‘CHRISTMAS’ SONG

This is a Christmas song.
You can tell because of the word ‘Christmas’
I could avoid the word the whole song long
As long as I use the word ‘Christmas’ just once
As long as I use the word ‘Christmas’ just once

Even if I didn’t say ‘Christmas’ once
Radios would find a way to still play
A Christmas song, as long as winter is mentioned
So I pander to the Christmas pandemonium
And write a new Christmas song
And write a new Christmas song

These days, do I even mention winter at all
When all I need is a cold dark night and twinkling lights?

Do I bring up the feasts, the families, the weather
Or whether everyone’s going to make it home?
Should I bring up Krampus or Santa Claus,
Bright red noses, or roofs where reindeer pause?

I could bring up Jesus, the reason for the season,
Or axial tilt, the real reason for the season,
Solstice, Saturnalia, pagan trees and wreaths,
Make another Chanukah song. Any other beliefs?

It’s a Christmas song because I say it is.
It’s a Christmas song because I wrote it is.
As long as I use the word ‘Christmas’ just once.
As long as I use the word ‘Christmas’ just once.

 

Voice

18 Sunday Nov 2018

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I pick up a book and read the first lines.
I listen to new music all the time.
And I think, I want to sound like that.
Why can’t my cords vibrate like that?
Why can’t my brain string words like that?
Why can’t I be louder, lovelier, stronger, better, best?
Why am I trapped sounding like this?

I wish I could sound like them, but I can’t.
Because I’m not them.
My voice is my voice,
And imitation only gets so far.
Always pale and weak,
Nowhere near where they are.

My voice is my own.
And maybe someday someone will say,
I wish I could sound like you.
But they can’t.
Because my voice is my own,
And there will never be another one like it.
Like it or not, my voice is my own.

The Rose Less Taken

16 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by in Music, Poetry, Series, Thorns

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I’ve been very busy with NaNoWriMo and the publication of Thorns was delayed, but it looks like it should be a go here within a week at most. I have a collection of Christmas songs that got this whole lyric-writing thing started, but I don’t want to start those until after Thanksgiving.

With Thorns coming out soon, I thought I’d share a song I wrote that was (very loosely) inspired by it. It’s got some themes connected to the series, but it’s not spoilerific, because it’s inspired by rather than based on.

It’s definitely got a darker rock edge to what was originally meant to be a pop sound. I’d put it in a pretty little minor key.

THE ROSE LESS TAKEN

She illuminates the room with crimson blue light
Fills up the spaces in everyone’s sight
For every step she takes, they all walk a mile
Velvet on her lips and thorns in her smile.

She is the eye in the center of the storm
The thickest of hides always gets torn
Making them wonder if she is the one
Love potion on her skin and poison in her tongue.

Chorus:
A rainbow in the gray
A slither out of sight
Woman by day
Temptation by night
I know that I shouldn’t
But I never say no
Wherever she takes me
I know that I’ll go
All she does is smile
And she leaves me broken
I’ll sink in her thorns
She’s the rose less taken.

Heaven knows she sends to me to hell
She was the very last angel who fell
She seems like honey, but you suffer her sting
And worship her for the pain that she brings.

Bridge:
She’s the vampire they cling to
The doll they desire
They pour gasoline
She sets them on fire
I’m only one of the beasts that she tames
She does what she does
And I’m the only one to blame.

Chorus

Would You Rather

25 Thursday Oct 2018

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Wrote something loosely inspired by NOCTURNE for Halloween, because I love writing horror songs. It’s another rock piece that I wouldn’t know how to do myself, but it’s got a nice beat in my head.

WOULD YOU RATHER

The dark of the night doesn’t scare me
Unseen eyes stare at me
Teeth bare at me
But they don’t scare me.

Beasts of the night are what they are
Each tear and each scar
Each extinguished star
Just what beasts are.

It’s the liars and thieves that live in the light
That scare me at night
Keep the door locked tight
These monsters of light.

The monsters at night don’t try to pretend
Hunger for the end
But hold your hand like a friend
‘Cause they don’t have to pretend.

Chorus:
I live with my nightmares
I don’t close my eyes
They feed on my fears
Can’t run and can’t hide
Consuming my body
The demons inside
I’d rather live with my nightmares
Than wake up to dreams that have died.

They hide in the closet and under the bed
That’s what they said
The quick and the dead
Hide under the bed.

In shadows they creep and crawl ‘cross the floor
Desperate for more
Than daylight is for
They beg me for more.

I pull back my covers, won’t cover my head
Let them find me instead
Crawl into my bed
Might as well be dead.

But with nightmares even dead can be fun
The night’s never done
Far away from the sun
I’m always the one.

Chorus

Bridge:
Tremble and shiver
My pulse starts to quiver
Cold skin grows warm under my hand
Tooth, nail, and claw
A cavernous maw
I’d follow them down to a dark, colder land.
But they like me alive
These beasts and their knives
They sink inside
I open my eyes
And the nightmare is always alive inside
It’s the soul that has died
As their spirits reside
In the shell I denied
For their pleasure and mine.

Chorus

Floodwaters

17 Wednesday Oct 2018

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Put this one down as ‘when you piss off a poet.’ Well, not much of a poet, but I like to rhyme now and then. Whenever I hear something from this one, I hear a power ballad, but don’t let that fool you.

FLOODWATERS

The end is near
The end is nigh
Whispers in your ear
Poison in the wine

All warnings failed
All signs ignored
We lost the Grail
No cracks restored

Some people are waiting for the whole world to burn
I’m just waiting for the floodwaters to return

Chorus:
The rain will fall
The winds will howl
Rushing water running with rivers of blood
We can’t go back
We can’t stop what’s to come
Everything we built consumed by a raging flood.

Repent, repent
Judgment descends
Condemning us all
To an inevitable end

No peaceful God
Promises aside
Nowhere to run
Nowhere to hide

Some people are waiting for the whole world to burn
I’m just waiting for the floodwaters to return

Chorus

Bridge:
He is not here
He won’t dry your tears
Tears that run down
From short-sighted years
The angels have flown
The devil’s in us
Did we really think
The world needed us?
We can’t wait too much longer
To do what we must.
We won’t do what we must.
We just wait for the waters
To drown us to dust.

No one to stop it
No one to save
We were given a garden
And made it a grave.

Some people are waiting for the whole world to burn
I’m just waiting for the floodwaters to return

Chorus

 

Trypophobia

03 Wednesday Oct 2018

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I’ve been saving this one for October, because it’s all about trypohobia, the fear of little holes where they shouldn’t be (see Lotus Pods, because there isn’t a photo in the free media library). There’s a theory that it arises from an atavistic fear of the visible symptoms of disease and parasites (see Delusional Parasitosis). Writing a song to invoke the discomfort of the phenomenon was a blast. I should write horror songs more often.

TRYPOPHOBIA

Thin threads hollow in the darkness
Cities and paths kept under the surface
Chewing their way through wooden bones
Insidious underneath skinful homes

Tiny pinpricks all in rows
Pulling from hundreds of little shadows
Slick long bodies and gnawing maws
The ones inside you never saw

Chorus:
Wriggle, squirm, scream, writhe
A pox upon the lotus eye
Itch and scratch, tearing cry
You never know what lies inside

Flowers and pods on riddled skin
Crawling and feeding deep within
Black eyes and mouths, open in wait
Death in moments, disease in their wake.

The hive mind, hive of the flesh
A soul decayed, mind in distress
Is prickling there or is it not?
Don’t you wish they’d stayed in the dark?

Chorus

Patterns of sick, patterns of harm
From deep within pores, from doors unarmed
Digging holes in your perception
Dare see death in your reflection.

Chorus

What Happened

26 Wednesday Sep 2018

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This was an interesting little piece. I like the ones that feel more freestyle with the rhyming structure.

It’s a more conventional sad song than I’m used to doing, but there’s something about it that’s more poignant than I expected I’d be able to put together. So warning, break-up song ahead.

I can see it going any number of ways, from a quiet country song to a soft singer-songwriter type thing to a rock ballad. I guess it depends on emphasis.

WHAT HAPPENED

It came from nowhere
This news that you found someone
And that you’re going somewhere
Somewhere that isn’t here.

I couldn’t see the signs
The excuses and the empty lies
Sweet nothing lines and wandering eyes
Were all invisible whenever you came near.

Did I cling too close to you before
Or let you wander too freely?
Or was I just a port where you could harbor
Until you found your sweeter shore?

Chorus:
Did you love me just to watch me fall?
When you left, did you mean to take my heart with you?
Did you laugh knowing how I would break down and cry?
Did you ever even love me at all?

It’s like you can’t feel
I run through our years of movie film reels
The dust in your attic won’t dry my tears
Everything I didn’t give, you had to steal.

I check myself every day
Lists of my faults, of mistakes that I made
Ways I pushed you too far to stay
And all the heartless things you had to say.

You put me in the dark alone
Forgot me like your shirts and your heart
You decided you needed a brand new start
Without finishing the story you left back at home.

Chorus

Bridge:
I’m only paper
To fold and to tear
Your love is water
I need more than air
You leave me for dead
It’s only fair
True love is misery
You’re too happy to share.

And I don’t know what happened
I don’t understand
How you could just walk away
Without looking behind you
Taking something to remind you
That we were what happened
We were what happened
And you threw it all away.

Chorus