"Rose"

I suppose I'm a preposterously-prolific peddler of musicality this evening. This one just happened by accident, truly. I had lit my celebratory cigarette, smoked for a second, and started to pay the (panned-right) guitar line. Lo and behold, the left side appeared, and lyrics spilled out like so many sequins.

I hope you can dig it. If you say I sound like Iron & Wine-meets-Postal Service-meets-James Taylor, I'll take it all in stride.

"Rose"

Rose by jhampton

She never made it on the train
I guess it'll be another day.
When all the signs point East into
The rising sub it's easy
Just to lay here in her bed.

The light crept slowly up the wall
Just like it wasn't there at all.
If I can lie my through
The rose I didn't get from you,
Maybe you won't have to call and

Say you love me still,
And you always will
Stay.

A younger couple just walked by;
Wearning new joy in their eyes.
I stopped to state a minute
Pretendeing we're still in
The place where I looked deep inside.

We walked into the windy night,
Union Square dressed in all lights.
I had to ignore
All the things I had said beforel
You turned and asked me, 'please, just one more time...'

Say you love me still,
And you always will
Stay.
Stay.


Kinda sappy, if I do say so myself, but even the Fury shed a tear when it was done.

Be Well. Be Strong.

Be Furious.

"I'm Not the Only One"

Here's another much-need, late-night diddy for my faithful Furious. It's inspired by a song I did a few years back that I was never really happy with. I heard this in my head and just the line 'I'm not the only one...' and voila! 4 hours later, this little package arrived by digital stork. Usual suspects here: keys played on my iPad, tracks in Garageband (using the built-in mic, which is incredible), a few effects, NO pitch correction and you can tell :)

Enjoy. Hopefully.

"I'm Not the Only One"

Not the Only One by jhampton




Seven weeks have marked their time
Carved on my face and in my mind...
And so, and so it goes.

Long the days, longer the nights
Free of struggle, full of fright.
And no-, nobody knows.

Looking back I see the tears
Have found their way through streets of years
But gently they arrive.

Staring up I know the fears
Of all my falsley-fated years,
But knowing I'm alright.


If only time can tell of heaven or of hell,
We'll learn our lessons well.

They say I was a treacherous son and
My time here is almost done but
I'm not the only one.


Seven years of plenty cam
Despite the long, cold winters and the pouring rain.
And so, I had to go.

To wander with the harvest moon,
Maybe it was just too soon.
And no, nobody knows.


If only time can tell of heaven or of hell,
We'll learn our lessons well.

They say I was a treacherous son and
My time here is almost done but
I'm not the only one.


Thanks for listening, and as always...
Be Well. Be strong.

Be Furious.

"Interloper"

In talking with the gents tonight after work, I realized there is NO reason NOT to post a creative work born quickly. This is a work in progress, people. And it's completely recorded, mixed, and mastered on the iPad using the built-in microphone.

Enjoy (but beware - the volume is a little high). Lyrics to follow...

Interloper by jhampton

"Interloper" (started 3/17/2010)

The sun came out today and slowly

Everything had changed.

A frozen moment hung below below me

And you were still the same.

Photographs and phone calls

Can't capture it all,

Still hanging on the walls.

Quiet morning wakes me up and you have...

You've been up for hours

We'll make up, make our plans and (maybe)

I'll bring home some flowers.

Photographs and phone calls

Can't capture it all,

Still hanging on the walls.

Photographs and phone calls

Can't capture it all,

Still hanging on (the walls).

An empty letter sits before me

Filling me with hope.

If you were here to help me write it...

Big words like 'interloper'.

Semantics, Social, and Personal

Dear Faithful Furious,

Many moons have passed, many suns have shone, but still the Fury lives on. My last post, though laden with lauds and latent understanding (let alone a myriad of lonely and mawkish murmurings), was heavy for this beleaguered but burgeoning blog. This will not follow suit nor suit those stuck in 'samey', saccharine situations.

I post instead a Furious Verse...some random poem from deep within. But first, a story:

Late in 2004, I posited (amongst many) that our droll, daily lives might yield an Acqua Santa sought by so many marketers. Lo and behold: Facebook v Google and FourSquare v GoWalla. Now, these nepotistic (check their heritages), neophytes in New Media might seem cutting-edge, but we've long-laboured to share our (pardon me) 'private pieces' with those for whom we care most. We now have the wherewithal and means to post our private lives and share special moments with our sacrosanct circles. But at what cost?

Fortunately, Facebook found a 'solution' to the problem: forego privacy for publicity, and create a semantic surplus of seemingly 'free' information to advertisers. That basically sums up F8's outcome. Granted, I'm a cynic and I've stood by social networking since the early days of BBS, then Yahoo!, then MySpace, then .

This is NEWS. Facebook has created the incentive and means by which all information on the web is searchable, indexed, and linked to one's account. Your search results for a dynamite dildo could be influenced by a friend's un-redacted diatribe. Do you really want to know?

I digress. I need to share a short (I promise) bit of poetry started earlier today.

"Friend, where are you?"

Walking, walking all the day, I found myself approaching you,

And while the premise slowly played, my choices became far and few:

Run and hide in guise of work, or play it out to find the end?

But, as always, fortune found an afternoon with faithful friends.

Walking back I found anew a sense of sacred solitude,

And to my place of daily grind, mind and body thus renewed.

What transpired, some devine, was made from many months of grind,

So from my quiet quarters soon to merry with a liker kind.

What I found was surface still. I traveled home to get some rest;

The city bright, but blacker will, at times, proffer and suggest

That we who live among the lost may count among our many costs

A certain interval of pain, and, on this ocean, tangled, tossed,

Just a moment to regain a sense of our own ending: friends.

Thank you for listening.

Be well. Be strong.

And for Fuck's sake...

:)

Be Furious.