twenty-seven angels from the great beyond

MP3: Because We Are the Sky (4.4 mb)

When someone tapes your voice, does it sound strange to you when you hear it played back? Mine does, as it does for so many people. The sound I hear myself making from inside my head, from within the acoustical confines of my skull I suppose, is often embarrassingly different from the sound emitting from the tape recorder. And I wonder if this implies a certain lack of self-awareness, or if it's a matter of the way sound behaves in different spaces (inside a head, for instance, as opposed to out in the open air or magnetically captured onto tape). I have a feeling it's the former, unfortunately.

Singing can be a whole 'nother thing because we're making noises with our voices that hopefully equate to certain notes on a musical scale. Often, a singer hitting wrong notes in a song can ruin the performance, but at other times it doesn't seem to matter. Lloyd Cole once said something like, "I learned from Bob Dylan and Lou Reed that you don't have to have a great voice to be a great singer," and I think that's true. Most of the singers that I like would rarely be accused of having great voices, but there's something about their delivery that just fits the songs they sing.

And that, in a weird sort of way, brings us around to this month's entry in the ever-rolling Marble Tea songfest. I'll be the first to admit that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing when it comes to singing (or tuning instruments, keeping time, etc.), but when I was recording this song I had the definite idea in my head that I should sound like Matt Berninger of The National in order to fully convey the mood I was hearing in my head. And in a way, in my head, I did indeed sound like him. The tape, on the other hand, reveals a totally different story.

So, if you really want to get a feel for my intention with this song, put yourself in my head and we'll be somewhere in the ballpark. It's just another ditty about the magic of universal consciousness after all....

BECAUSE WE ARE THE SKY

I'll tell you one thing I have learned
There's never a good time to be burned
On a stake
With your hands pure and soul like silver
And your eyes wide to life's one river

I'll give you one night to rehearse
The melody and the phrasing of the verse
Of the moon
That reflects into your dark cover
Telling you there is just one lover

And it knows it's you
And it knows it's you

So we ride, because we are the sky
And we are the sky so we ride

I'll take you away from your heart
And we'll glide along like sisters in the dark
To reveal
That our shadow selves are anchored to us
Like the wave of light that shines right through us

And you know it's you
And you know it's you

So we ride, because we are the sky
And we are the sky so we ride


If you're playing around on Facebook, come be a friend at facebook.com/marbletea, and also be sure to check out the progress of my forthcoming EP at trumanshat.wordpress.com where I show you how you can make your own fun recordings from the comfort of your home, singing chops not required. Thanks for listening!

Be sure to Subscribe so you don't miss anything, yeah?