SONG: “Particle.” (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)
ARTIST: grant (with apologies to Antonio Vivaldi).
SOURCE: Based on “How Fungi Create the Amazon’s Clouds”, Time, 5 September 2012, as used in the post “Mushrooms that make the weather.”
ABSTRACT: Unlike the last few songs, this one has nothing to do with a SongFu prompt; we’d kind of fallen out of synch with our respective due dates, and by the time this month’s prompt rolled around (about television crushes), I’d already started working on a song about the fungus particles that make it rain. I may whip out a TV-crush song yet for October.
This one, though, was almost done to a much simpler chord progression – something like Am/G/F/F – but I’ve long been obsessed with the Bobby McFerrin/Yo-Yo Ma version of Vivaldi’s “Concerto for Two Mandolins” (Because the “Don’t Worry” guy! Being beautiful!) and figured if “Whiter Shade of Pale” could rip off Bach, why couldn’t I borrow that melody?
I also thought there’s something lonely and powerful about the tiny living things who make weather happen. I knew I wanted nothing but voice and guitar, even though that kind of leaves all my flaws exposed. Breathless. Small.
Lyrics/chords:
I
(Am) Particle, small but alive
(G#) Particle, spore on the (E) wind, suddenly
(Am) Droplets will start to form,
(Am) Over the jungle, there’s
(Dm) Light-ning Stri-king
(G) Somewhere within the storm
(G) Under the thunder, you’re
(C) Rid-ing, Hid-ing
(F) Spreading like fog over
(F) Branches and hollow logs
(G) Hundreds of acres of
(G) Fungus are making
(C) Tornadoes and tempests and
(C) Twisting the weather with
(G) 1, 2, 3, 4, mill-
(G) -ion particles more…
(C) Then, it starts (E) To pour…II.
(Am) Particle, when you arrive
(G#) Particle, when you (E) begin, suddenly
(Am) Old branches fall away
(Am) Skies open all the way
(Dm) Ris-ing Gli-ding
(G) Looking down overhead
(G) Unseen and out of bed
(C) Ris-ing, Hid-ing
(F) Lost in the wind letting
(F) Leaves pull our parachutes
(G) Hundreds of acres of
(G) Fungus are making
(C) Tornadoes and tempests and
(C) Twisting the weather with
(G) 1, 2, 3, 4, mill-
(G) -ion particles more…
(C) Then, it starts (E) To pour…III. (Br)
(Am) I remember my dreams.
I remember
(Dm)I woke and I thought I could
(G) see – other particles
(C) signaling sideways to
(F) me as we spread through the
(B) air like a black cloud of
(E) steam and we thought we were
(Am) men who were dreaming we’re
mushrooms, our mothers were
(E) trees and our fathers were
fungal diseases and
(Am) then we’d spread as (E) spores..IV. (Same as I)
(Am) Particle, small but alive
(G#) Particle, spore on the (E) wind, suddenly
(Am) Droplets will start to form,
(Am) Over the jungle, there’s
(Dm) Light-ning Stri-king
(G) Somewhere within the storm
(G) Under the thunder, you’re
(C) Rid-ing, Hid-ing
(F) Spreading like fog over
(F) Branches and hollow logs
(G) Hundreds of acres of
(G) Fungus are making
(C) Tornadoes and tempests and
(C) Twisting the weather with
(G) 1, 2, 3, 4, mill-
(G) -ion particles more…
(C) Then, it starts
(E) To pour..