

SONG: “Secret Dragons”.
ARTIST: grant.
SOURCE: The Guardian 2 March 2023, “‘Like a little dragon’: new gecko species discovered on rugged Queensland island,” as used in the post “Dragon discovered: A new gecko species found on Australian island”
ABSTRACT:
Phyllurus fimbriatus is a charismatic little guy, and I’m sure absolutely terrifying for any creature less than 6 inches long. So in a way I think this song is like a diorama version of the sweeping hard-prog fantasy metal that provided the backdrop to so many D&D games and Michael Moorcock reading sessions in the 1980s. Lo-fi indie heavily informed by King Crimson and Cultosaurus Erectus-era Blue Oyster Cult. It’s also the result of a fascination I have with riffs, the way a lot of the music I like is built on riffs yet they don’t really come naturally to me. What comes naturally to me is singing barely above a whisper over a mournful, detuned acoustic guitar.
Well, this isn’t that.
I suppose I should say that all the guitars and basses in this are a nylon-string acoustic guitar. There are no keyboard basses, no synth or sample basses. There’s a mellotron in the background, and there’s something like … oh, let me count them … seven tracks of me playing acoustic guitar straight into the laptop mic and then layering different effects on each one. (I even made a solo happen!) Two tracks of MIDI drums. Two vocal tracks. A little bit of Martin Eastwood Audio’s “Duet” VST effect to tie everything together and make it seem a little wider.
I managed to resist the usual urge to overwrite it, helped along by the idea of making the first syllable of each line repeat like an echo, which feels like an 80s hooky pop-prog-metal move to me – although I can’t think of examples of any of those bands doing it. Maybe Ozzy Osbourne?
Anyway, there are dragons in the world, on an island, or rather in less than a square mile of an island, and they’ve being hiding there all along if only we had eyes to see them. This is my salute, oh majestic Scawfell Island leaf-tailed gecko.
LYRICS:
Hide (hide hide hide hide) from invisible eyes
Slide (slide slide slide slide) through the shadows inside
An I-(I I I I)sland for less than a mile
Why (I I I I) would a dragon take flight?Secret dragons
Le-(he he he he)-eaf tails as smooth as a stone
A be-he-eaky face on an island alone
Dee-he-he-he-heep in the boulders of homeSecret dragons
See these secret dragons (x4)