SONG: All I See

SONG:

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: Based on Scientific American, 28 July 2020, “The Brittle Star That Sees with Its Body”, as used in the post ”
A brittle star’s whole body is an eye”.

ABSTRACT: I love the way the music came together for this, and spent hours listening to it with a synth sound subbing for the vocal line. Acoustic guitar, recorded as well as I can, with a simple hi-hat click track, some drum accents, a simple Rhodes bass, and a lead guitar riff that I doubled an octave down for a bass riff (both of which got side-chained against the simple bass line).

The words, I’m less sure about. It was a little weird – I’m used to finding a key phrase and then other bits of phrases sort of growing around that in a style or genre that feels appropriate. In this case, I knew it was about brittle stars seeing without eyes, and I knew that I wanted this to be some kind of “now I see everything” lyric of revelation but not, like, “I see what you were doing,” necessarily. There are nods to Stevie Nicks and a few indie bands in the words as they eventually came together, but I’m not sure if there’s the verbal hook anywhere that I really wanted. It’s about seeing in a way that doesn’t involve eyes, and that happens underwater, a sandy, alien place where sunlight falls like rain, where five crystal-studded limbs can substitute for sense organs as you and I know them. The music isn’t quite alien enough for those concepts, I don’t think. I’m not sure. It could be a shipwreck survival story, which seems like a lot of my old relationships. A lot of the lyric relies on that last line.

And I recorded it today, after an exhausting morning cutting down an Australian pine that fell the wrong way, leading to a panicky few moments (it was leaning against a branch overhanging a street with, like, traffic going by underneath it) and a little bit of blood (damn thing sprang back at my hand when I finally sawed through the last bit) and a lot of overheating (I think the “feels like” temperature was 109 degrees, which might explain some of the lapses of judgment leading to the preceding events). On the other hand, I managed not to kill myself, squash any trucks, and now have a few good logs to hammer shiitake plugs into. So, while I’m looking forward to fresh mushrooms in a few months, I also sounded a little more like a tired old man than I’d like while tracking tonight. Just right for a certain kind of country song. Maybe an ancient mariner vibe?

Anyway, it’s still hummable, which is good enough for me.

LYRICS:

V1
I wasn’t looking
There wasn’t time
Lost in the currents
I turned inside
Counting to five

V2
Then I was crawling
Blinded on the ground
Flushed with sensations
As the light came down

CH
On my skin
Painted shadows
Sunlight falls like rain

In my limbs
My perceptions
Close my eyes…
All I see

V3
This crystal vision
I can’t hide (the thrill)
Look without blinking
Start to shine (we spill)
Salt and wine (until)

CH
On my skin
Painted shadows
Sunlight falls like rain

In my limbs
My perceptions
Close my eyes…
All I see

V4
Like fire in water
Waves on the sun
Some lies you live through
Some days are done
The stars become

CH
On my skin
Painted shadows
Sunlight falls like rain

In my limbs
My perceptions
Close my eyes…
All I see
And you see me.