Recent events in the political and arts spheres have made me want to briefly contemplate the connection between the two – how the state of our political and social climate is clearly reflected in the arts world, and why the answer to making the arts better lies in political participation. Before we start, I realize that getting involved in a political process that can feel broken beyond repair seems like a waste of time. In fact, I’ve often found that there is an inherent pressure for artists to “stay out of politics”. For some reason the two have been made out to be incompatible. If musicians get politically active they are sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong, and alienating a portion of their audience by “picking a side”. However, this separation of arts and politics doesn’t reflect the truth. I believe what artists do, creating and reflecting snap shots of the human experience, is inherently political. The yucky word of “politics” is simply a description of how we as human beings govern ourselves and make decisions. It’s actually a really great thing! In a world where it seems like every news headline is screaming to not bother voting, I ask that you stick with me. It’s intentionally made to look daunting and wasteful. I promise that voting and participating is worth a try, even if it seems pointless. The ProblemAs I mentioned in a previous post, we are all artists. A massive part of being human is to want to create and consume art. However, only a very lucky few are given permission to do this as our main form of livelihood. The main determining factor in whether or not we are able to do this, is wealth. “Someone whose family has an income of $100,000 is twice as likely to become an artist, actor, musician or author than a would-be creative with a family income of $50,000. Raise annual income to $1 million and $100,000, respectively, and the stakes become even higher, with members of the first household nearly 10 times more likely to choose a creative profession than those from the second.” (smithsonianmag.com) With current economic trends of wealth being increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small minority of the current population, the effect is an increasingly inaccessible arts world. Source for financial info: stlouisfed.org The ability for us to do what we do is being gradually stripped away. It’s getting to the point where if I was born a few years later, I’m not sure I would be making music. That’s terrifying to me. Parallels in the ArtsIn the arts themselves, we see this playing out in real time at the very institutions which gatekeep access to successful careers in classical music. All across the country, program cuts and layoffs haunt hard working faculty members while CEOs and Presidents take massive pay raises. One of the most emblematic schools of this problem might come as no surprise to you if you’ve been reading my posts. CIM (Cleveland Institute of Music) is a school filled with wonderful teachers and students, who are currently facing immense precarity in a deluge of firings and cuts under the leadership of Paul Hogle. The faculty senate at CIM stated it perfectly in their vote of no confidence, “President Hogle accepted a raise of $111,282 (26.3%) between the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years while simultaneously guiding CIM into its first deficit in 30 years and advising faculty that merit-based or cost-of-living raises would not be expected for several years.” (ideastream.org) Sound familiar? Actively siphoning off wealth, subverting worker’s agency, denying education whenever possible… To further underline this leadership’s disregard for its faculty, CIM advertised an opening for a new piano faculty position in 2023: Source: slippedisc.com Considering the kind of education they require, this was a blatant announcement of how out of touch leadership really is at that school. Although, with a salary of over $400,000, being out of touch doesn’t surprise me. When I saw recent news coming out from Slipped Disc that Hogle and his executive vice president, Scott Harrison, had taken yet another raise in 2023, I wasn’t surprised. All I can say, if it’s not already glaringly obvious to you, is that this is an incredibly dangerous path to continue going down. Source: slippedisc.com The situation at CIM is just a specific example. Look across all industries, you’ll see the same exact pattern. There is a clear parallel here between the accumulation of wealth inside and outside of the arts. The solution is political. If we don’t do something, our ability to do this as a living may be completely extinguished. What can we do?We need to remove the mental barrier that the arts are supposed to be apolitical. They are political. That’s a good thing! Artists should be politically active. If we’re not, we’re abandoning the fight to ensure that our craft continues and expands to include all people.
As I’ve touched on before, in addition to shouting out organizations actively participating in making the arts better, I will be creating new resources for voting artists and folks who want to get more involved. Time scarcity is a wonderful way to keep us all complacent, and I want to donate a little bit of my time for those who don’t have it. Leading up to November, I’ll be doing a breakdown of Project 2025 – demonstrating exactly what the stakes are in this election, creating a how-to for registering to vote, and a guide on getting a mail-in ballot. If you have questions about these things, or just want to follow along with someone else through the process, stick around! It looks a little bleak at the moment, but we can turn this around together. Thank you for reading, and happy jamming!
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I recently had the pleasure of meeting with the Vice President of Concert Music at ASCAP, Cia Toscanini. Our discussion about the music industry and how composers receive royalties inspired me to go ahead and break down how exactly a composer registers for a PRO. The following is not financial advice. I’m simply sharing my own experiences, and resources that I would have found helpful early in my career as a composer. Why Register?The first thing to touch on is why registering with a PRO is so important. PROs or Performing Rights Organizations collect and distribute royalties to registered composers anytime their music is played. That’s right, in case you aren’t aware, you are supposed to get paid royalties for all performances of your pieces! Whether it’s played on a student recital, at a restaurant, or on a radio station, all these different venues pay license fees to PROs who then collect the money and distribute it to their registered composers, authors, and publishers. If you’re getting performances of your work and you aren’t registered, you’re leaving a good chunk of change on the table! I may do a future post that gets more into the nitty gritty of how this works. If I do, I’ll link it here. Your OptionsThere are three PROs in the US: ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. SESAC is an invite-only PRO, so I’ll leave that out of my coverage. In choosing between ASCAP and BMI, that is up to personal preference. As far as I’m aware, BMI tends to offer more benefits tailored to songwriters while ASCAP offers more for live performances and self-published composers. However, I have composer friends who are registered in either camp, ignoring these genre-based benefits, and all seem content with their respective choices. My personal inclination towards ASCAP was a result of a greater familiarity with it through my teachers at Fredonia, and the fact that they offer a cheaper registration fee – being completely free for self-published composers. Due to this personal leaning, I’ll be giving a run down of how to register from the ASCAP perspective. If you’d rather go with BMI, the process should be fairly similar, just go over to bmi.com and fill out their application form! One thing that I found very helpful as a student, if you’re currently in school, was to sit down with my teacher and spend one of our lessons together joining a PRO. This gave me a chance to ask questions as they came up and get a good run down of how the whole system works. They’ll be able to guide you through the process of applying and how to get your pieces registered. If you don’t have a teacher, feel free to reach out to me anytime with any questions. How to Join ASCAPThe process for registering is quite easy, but I’ll include a little step by step you can follow here. Again, if you have questions, I’m happy to offer insight on my own experiences, reach out anytime.
1. Go to the ASCAP website, or you can go directly to the application landing page: https://ome.ascap.com/en it should look like the image I’ve included above. 2. If you’re a self-published composer (you are currently writing your own music without a separate publishing deal with an outside organization) Then select the "Writer & Publisher" option. 3. Select “Individual / Sole proprietor or Single-member LLC” unless you’ve set up a company with a different structure. (If you’re writing music alone and are self published you can automatically consider yourself a Sole proprietor – this means you’ll file taxes for your business normally as a part of your regular income. If you want more info on that, I’ve made a post going over how I file taxes here. 4. Fill out the form with your personal information. 5. You’ll then go on to create your writer profile and then your publisher profile. This is important as you’ll receive your royalties split between these two profiles. Writers receive 50% of earned royalties and publishers receive the other 50%. Your writer account should simply use your own name. Your publisher account should be a name you can see yourself being happy with for a long time. I personally chose “Penzo Publishing”. I know, real creative. You can later connect both of these accounts to whatever bank of your choosing in order to receive your royalties. Make sure you connect both accounts with a way of receiving your royalties so you can get 100% of your earnings! Congratulations! The next thing you’ll want to do is start registering each of your works with ASCAP. I’ll be making a separate post that goes over how to do that soon. I’ll link it here when it’s available. Until then, thank you for reading. I hope this was helpful. Happy jamming! In my last post, I mentioned the list of fantastic organizations that I was able to meet at the Yale Innovation Summit. This week, I want to focus on one of these groups in particular: Art Pharmacy, “a tech-enabled healthcare company that works with managed care plans, health systems, and community partners to address the mental health crisis through social prescribing.” Using access to the arts as a vehicle for well-being – I’m all about that! I was even able to get in touch with the founder, Chris Appleton, and COO Brian McGrath Davis, to get some of my questions answered. What is it?One of the most crucial aspects to understand in learning about Art Pharmacy is what “social prescribing” is. Conveniently enough, they define it on their website. “Social prescribing is a practice through which health care providers prescribe social care or social interventions as supplements to traditional clinical and pharmaceutical care.” In recent years, I’ve personally noticed a trend amongst my friends and myself of increasing social isolation. In many cases it’s this rising isolation and accompanying loneliness that exacerbates mental health issues. It seems incredibly difficult to find time to go out and meet new people. Money is tight, and going out can seem like a great effort when most people are spending all their energy on simply paying bills. Art Pharmacy presents a solution. “By leveraging the power of arts and culture engagements, Art Pharmacy provides an effective way to address social isolation/loneliness and mental health concerns. Traditional treatment for mental health concerns, for instance, can suffer from stigma (still), time to care (due to availability of behavioral health professionals), and compliance (e.g., to medication). An arts prescription directly addresses these challenges to the behavioral health side of US healthcare. Our services effectively increase the behavioral health workforce and provide effective, relevant, culturally-grounded care for patients suffering from various health concerns.” Essentially, by recognizing the importance of the arts in addressing this “Loneliness and Isolation Epidemic”, treatment can be provided by simply granting people access to arts and cultural events that they wouldn’t normally have the spare finances to afford. How does it work?So how does this work? It’s actually quite simple. You can get a look at an example of “the patient experience” on the Art Pharmacy website. I’ll include a break down of it here: 1. Referral - “Your healthcare provider identifies a need, and writes a 'prescription' for engagement with an arts & cultural activity.” This works the same as any other diagnosis and prescription. The only difference is that rather than traditional medication, you are being prescribed an activity to attend. 2. Care Navigation - “A dedicated Care Navigator contacts you to connect you with smart-matched arts & culture engagements.” In determining which engagements would be best for a patient, Art Pharmacy uses a “proprietary software” which utilizes information gathered through those Arts & Health studies we discussed earlier. Through this software, Art Pharmacy is “able to find specific arts engagements in the patient’s community that have been verified by research and align with the patient’s preferences.” 3. Participation - “You attend monthly arts & culture activities with protective and therapeutic benefits to your mental health.” These activities range from “museum visits to ceramics classes to dance, theater, and live performances.” “Arts & culture” is a broad category indeed! 4. Monitoring - “Your Care Navigator monitors your progress and shares that information with your referring provider.” 5. Refill - “At the end of your prescription, visit your healthcare provider to get a refill!” Isn’t that amazing! How is it helpful?The evidence for the positive impact that access to arts can have is extensive. From addressing loneliness due to its inherent social implications, to benefitting childhood development, to being able to engage with marginalized or hard to reach groups that the current health system neglects. Art Pharmacy offers ample evidence on their website including studies which backup the efficacy of their organization. They also offer a handy “Research Summary”. I’ll link it here. In their responses, Chris and Brian touched on the overlap between their work and the field of Arts & Health. “Arts & Health is a well-established field with several decades of research focused on the specific benefits of arts and culture engagement. Centers for arts and medicine/health exist at some of the world's leading research institutions, including Johns Hopkins, Duke University, University of Florida, and UCLA. Researchers at Harvard, the World Health Organization, and beyond have made clear that engagement in the arts can improve patients’ health outcomes.” In cultures across the globe and throughout history, we’ve witnessed the crucial communal importance of the arts. This social prescribing model could serve as a way to connect people to communities of support that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. Patients are not the only potential benefactors of this approach. Your mind may already be jumping to the impact on artists themselves. With Art Pharmacy, access to the arts has its barriers to entry lowered. This means new audiences will finally be welcomed into the halls and galleries that have been so eager to meet them. The most fascinating part for me is that this new revenue stream is entirely beneficial to all parties involved. Artists will have access to greater financial support, patients will receive care that can help them heal, and even the insurance companies footing the bill can benefit from reducing health risks brought about through successful treatment. The Road AheadI’m so excited for what this organization can mean for the health world and the arts world. Long-term, “Art Pharmacy has a goal of bringing arts-based social prescribing to US healthcare.” As of now, social prescribing is unheard of here in the states. To underline this, an alarming assertion can be found on the Art Pharmacy website: “Art Pharmacy is the sole commercial social prescribing company in the United States.” This is a new and exciting road here! “Our goal is for the next generation to associate our health outcomes, in part, with our engagement with the arts – just as previous generations learned to associate exercise with health outcomes.”
In asking about ways that artists can support this wonderful initiative, Chris and Brian simply had this to say, “Art has been prescribed from the beginning of culture itself. Art has always been a beneficial component of society. Artists have always had a hand in healing their communities. Artists need only continue to share their art with their communities, to continue to do the good work they are doing.” You hear that? Keep at it! A beautiful sentiment. I hope this idea was as encouraging for you as it was for me. Thank you for reading, and happy jamming! Last week I was lucky enough to be asked by Samuel Hsieh to come along on a trip to the Yale Innovation Summit. East Zodiac, the new music commissioning organization I work on with Sam and Vanna Tsiknias, was slated to give a presentation through the University of Michigan EXCELerator program. In the presentation, we discussed our goal of better representation for AAPI composers in the classical concert space, and introduced our new initiative to bring our program to music students in early education. If you’d like to support this venture, you can find our website here. Everything went well, but this presentation which had been at the top of mind for Sam and I leading up to the Summit, ended up being only a small part of our trip. I wanted to make this post as a sort of recap of what happened, and to share some exciting new resources I’ve been inspired to create. InspirationLeft to right: Gala Flagello (Connecticut Summerfest), Alexis Lamb (Refugia Festival), Samuel Hsieh and I (East Zodiac), Allyson Cohen (CMOC), Sasha Gusikhin (NeuroArts Productions), Jonathan Kuuskoski and Gabrielle Piazza (SMTD EXCEL Program) To anyone granted the opportunity to attend this summit, I can’t stress how much I encourage it. It’s a place filled with people with a passion and drive for their work that is infectious. Before attending, I’d found myself in a place where I felt quite defeated about the state of the arts, and the world in general for that matter. As much as I was finding examples of clear problems in the arts, I was having trouble understanding what solutions might be, and what exactly I could do to help push for them. While many of the discussions at the summit did touch on these problems, they also began to present potential solutions. There were organizations raising money to support artists – similar to East Zodiac, some worked to create performance spaces in places where they didn’t exist before – bringing the arts to the people who need them most, some found the connections between music, health, and the environment – healing people and the earth with art! In talking with these wonderful minds, and learning more about their projects, I realized that I was staring at the solution. It was dependent on the success of all of these ventures. After many of my recent formal music experiences, this was a breath of fresh air. People valuing this craft we all spend so much time on, but in a way that is not elitist, in a way that is practical in its belief that the arts are a human right. One of the briefest conversations I had at the summit ended up being the most valuable. It happened shortly after a panel on Art Pharmacy – an organization which allows doctors to prescribe arts consumption and participation… and have insurance cover it! (I KNOW! – I’ll do a post focused on this at some point too!) After the panel ended, I went up to talk with Michael J. Bobbitt, one of the speakers, and asked him for specific avenues that artists could take towards pushing for the progressive changes that artists need from their government. In addition to being a playwright, Michael is executive director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council and has recently been advocating for the implementation of Art Pharmacy. His response was to get in communication with representatives, an option which I was already aware of, but then he added a little tidbit that was new to me. Apparently, there is a threshold that can be reached in the number of communications received on a specific issue. Once that threshold is reached, the representative must act on the request from their constituents. This means that if enough people can push for a given issue, they can not be ignored. When he pointed out that this threshold can be as low as four communications on a given issue, alarm bells went off in my head. The Plan Going ForwardWhat if there was a way to provide people with all the tools they need to press issues they care about? Emails drafted and ready to go, the exact names and contacts of recipients they need to go to, and research into proposed policy in support of progressive change done and presented in a way that is easily accessible? Suddenly each person's capacity for political influence would be supercharged. This is my new plan with Musician Coop. I’ll continue my bi-weekly posts, but included in a few of these posts will be coverage of tangible political policy. I’ll summarize the points of the policy and discuss potential benefits, find contact information for representatives that could use a little pushing on the issue, and provide a drafted email you can copy and send to them as desired. My goal will be to make every artist's voice amplified in a call for a better world. To make it easy to push for the changes we could all benefit from. Now, I realize the readership here is not that significant, but four communications?! We could do that.
Stay tuned for future posts exploring some wonderful music-related ventures and initiatives. Until then, thank you for reading, and happy jamming! I believe that all people are artists at their core. We all consume art and create art on a daily basis. It’s an integral part of being human. However, we are not all considered “artists”. Why is that? Much of my recent thinking has been revolving around this concept. What does it take to be considered an artist? If art is so fundamental to being considered human, why do so few of us bear this illusive moniker of “artist”? The broad consensus I’ve encountered is that you need to be able to make money off your craft to be considered an artist. Otherwise, you’re often not taken seriously in the role, considered a mere hobbyist, or even worse–considered to be wasting your time. I wholly disagree with this notion, but we’ll get to that. In order to fit into this socially acceptable brand of “artist”, a person needs three things: time, money, and connections. It’s the availability of these factors that will influence the amount of luck you need in creating a career. The Supposed Ingredients of ArtistryFirst, time and money. In order to gain any kind of recognition, an artist needs the time and flexibility to hone their skills and craft to a place where they can advertise it and attract potential sources of income. This can take the form of taking lessons, studying at a university, or simply learning via the magic of the internet. Either way, this takes a bunch of money and free time to accomplish. I put time and money in the same category as they are often interchangeable in our current world. People who have more money have the luxury of greater control over their own time. They can take time off, quit their job and find a new one, adjust their schedule to better suit their needs. These are fundamental advantages, especially in the pursuit of the arts as a career. Next, connections. Humans help the humans they know. This means if you happen to be born into a musical family, you will have access to more connections should you desire to pursue music. If your father is a famous painter, you’ll be close to a lot of artists, etc. This can also simply apply to wealth. Money opens doors, and if you have friends and family with considerable wealth, this can also be a valuable connection, regardless of your desired field. People talk about it like it's gross and taboo, but it’s an undeniable truth. Why shouldn’t people help those that they care about? Finally, luck. Is it possible to “make it” without ample time, money, or connections? Yes. However, your success will be based entirely on getting lucky at the right time. All careers are fundamentally based on this, but those who have had access to time and money, and happened to meet the right connections are exponentially more likely to capitalize on luck when it strikes. They’ll have a beautifully mixed album finished when their new single suddenly takes off, they’ll have mastered orchestration when they finally get a call to arrange something by a major artist, they’ll be a master of their instrument when they manage to get through semi-finals in their last audition. Luck is always a factor, but it strikes more substantially and more frequently for those with the privilege of having access to money, time, and connections. EducationSo what’s my point? Discredit the American magic of good ol’ hard work? Make people sad and upset? Well, not entirely. I do think this is a problem, and so a certain amount of discontent is appreciated in fueling any change. The answer to why the arts are so selective in who they consider to be a member occurred to me as I was looking into the history of education. There’s an interesting correlation between social movements and students throughout history. In fact, social movements almost always have their roots in schools in some way. I have yet to learn about a major revolution or social movement that has not had students (current and former) involved in some way. It’s almost as though receiving an education helps you better understand the state of the world – shocking. This is a trend that is especially prevalent in the liberal arts and humanities. I think this is because the arts teach us about ourselves and each other. As soon as you start seeing yourself in others, you start to understand their perspective. Humans help the humans they know. Image source: (educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-year) In fact, if you look up when the price of higher education started drastically increasing. It was almost directly in response to the social progressive movements on college campuses in the 60s. It seems the government realized that this whole education thing was making people question the way lives were being led at the time. Their solution of raising the cost of attending was a way to ensure that the only people with the knowledge and perspective to change the system would be the least likely to recognize it. The current system works okay for those who can pay their tuition out of pocket, not so much for those who struggle to do that for groceries. Working class families face the prospect of having their children take on extensive debt if they want a degree. At the same time, job prospects for those without a college degree are dwindling. Education is no longer about learning and the betterment of the self, it is about getting a return on an investment – an investment that obviously turns many but the most wealthy away from the arts as a feasible option. Trouble in the ArtsEven for those fortunate enough to study in the arts, there’s a shocking disconnect between a student musician and their human needs. Oftentimes, conservatory students are treated as little more than note factories, pumping out pristine and flawless performances, all the while struggling with severe mental and physical injuries. The stigma that building a career in the arts is difficult is so prevalent that it becomes all consuming. The student experiences the pressure of needing to be “the best” in order to overcome the improbable odds. Instead of a collaborative community, they find a toxic and isolationist culture of working to the point of collapse. I often found myself struggling to find where the art was in this process. To me, it’s completely antithetical. Even when we practice as “artists” we are being actively discouraged from pursuing our craft as it is intended – as a community. By keeping us fractured and unable to express ourselves, by preventing our access to knowledge that allows us to recognize the problems of our current system, we are kept trapped within this system. It’s through making the arts an elitist institution reserved for only the wealthiest and luckiest that it becomes a haven for abuses of power. It’s a nightmarish place where predators, egotists, and sociopaths flourish. All elements that make art what it is become diluted in this environment. I’ve found that many of the most famous monsters residing in this golden keep can scarcely call themselves artists. They’re something else altogether. Art as a RightTo be an artist is to be a human being and vice versa, there is no difference between the words. I’ve even seen some wonderful work by elephants and chimpanzees, so the definition may be even wider yet! To those who cling to the notion that their work can’t be considered “art” because they can’t make money off it, I ask you, were you making money drawing on the sidewalk with chalk at 5 years old? You still did it for some reason didn’t you? We all start out knowing that we are artists, but somewhere along the way we are convinced that we are not. We are convinced that we don’t have the ability to create. This is not true.
Free expression, exploration, and collaboration are dangerous to a flawed system. Be dangerous. Be an artist. Express yourself freely, and pursue a path that enables others to do it as well. Those that do will find that they are far from alone. Fight for free and accessible education. Fight for students’ and teachers’ rights. Fight for the right to make art – the right to have the time, money, and freedom for expression. The more art in the world, the better the world. We have been led to believe that it is just a fleeting luxury, but it is so much more. Thank you for reading, and happy jamming!
This week’s blog is an album spotlight about one of the first artists that I came to follow in earnest. His album, Wool, was my introduction to his work, and has been massively influential on my musical tastes. Nick was generous enough to provide a bit of insight into his work via email, which was much appreciated as a writer of this blog and a fan of his work.
Image from: (nickjaina.bandcamp.com/album/wool)
Before getting into my personal favorites off it, I thought I’d touch on the broader themes of the album. The first thing you’ll notice as a listener is the amount of detail in the sound design. In addition to unique instrumentation choices, the album features found sounds, foley effects, and even old recording clips. I find myself finding new hidden sounds in each listen through. Definitely a treat and a challenge to try and discern specific sounds upon analyzing it. The music and lyrics present an intricate puzzle with endless interpretations. My cup of tea!
Each song stands on its own and provides a different color and emotion for the listener to consider. Even with this independence, the music all feels cut from the same cloth. “I really wanted to make a collection of songs that felt like Chopin's Preludes in that they each have a distinct melody, a different shade of melancholy or sweetness, and don't overstay their welcome. I wanted each song to feel like it was an opener for the next.” This pursuit of Chopin naturally explains the prominence of the piano. Nick went on to tell me that this particular instrument the album was recorded on was Elliott Smith’s old piano at Jackpot Records in Portland. “I was actually the last person to record on it before it was moved to the Experience Music Project in Seattle. You can listen to his old demos of songs like ‘I Didn't Understand’ and hear the same character.”
The thing I find most intriguing about the music and lyrics of Nick Jaina is that they have a way of capturing sentiments that are difficult to place. Being eerie and melancholic, while simultaneously warm and comforting. Like one of those paintings where things come into focus when stepping back and letting your eyes unfocus, there’s meaning in the text that becomes apparent by letting the music and lyrics blend into one. I encourage you to let your ears relax and unfocus as you listen, perhaps you’ll find some truth to my rambling!
Power
This track is the first tune I was exposed to on the album. Although when I first heard it, it was as the all cello arrangement by the Portland Cello Project. I made a post not too long ago discussing their album, which you can read about here and listen to that version.
In addition to being my gateway into the music of Nick Jaina, “Power” is probably my favorite track on the album. Moans from the void and hums of electricity can be heard swelling in the background of a chugging piano, with weaving guitar, bass clarinet, and cello lines commenting on statements in the voice. The dense orchestration offers so much for the ear to cling on to. We hear the return of old instruments, most importantly the music box from the previous track, “Maryanne”. I never realized how much bass clarinet can sound like a buzzing lightbulb before listening to this track. Lyrics:
I interpret the lyrics as a kind of love song. Struggling to nurture affection amongst a set of impossible circumstances. Every time the characters get close to love, “they shut the power off”. The imagery of the full moon and power outages evokes the coziness of huddling on a couch as the walls creak and lights flicker from a raging storm outside. Bicycle
The tail end of “Power” serves as a pickup to “Bicycle”. The two songs feed directly into each other. Howling wind and creaking of an old bicycle underscore a gently lulling and eerie melody. One can’t help but imagine a flying bicycle floating amongst the clouds. Nick says, “‘Bicycle’ is me writing an escalating series of metaphors for how to depict the moon in a delightful way.”
The lyrics end on a particularly sweet note. That despite all the trials and tribulations of life, “I will climb on my bicycle and carry the moon to your house”. Lyrics:
|
down every road
that you hope to go I'll light the way down every road and oh they debate in criminal ways and all that was clear is now locked in haze until you find a man in the city who showers you with twenties and fifties and you'll call it love |
and he watches o'er us
with just one eyeball all that we do with just one eyeball and the thoughts that we think slips like blood down the sink and if anyone hears they can have a drink until you find a man in the city who showers you with twenties and fifties and if you find a man in the city who showers you with twenties and fifties don't call it love (nickjaina.com/hymn) |
when it was good it was in Ponchatoula
now that it's bad, it's in our souls, it's in our souls when we were blessed, we were blessed in Ponchatoula now that the crime's confessed, we are walking over the hot coals when your dress was white, it was as white as the sun when the sun was bright, we lived down there in a shotgun when the rains came, well we did the best we could if it weren't for the aligators, we would've slept out there in the woods |
when it was right, it was in Ponchatoula
now that it's wrong, it's wrong all over the world even when I was good, I was robbing banks in Ponchatoula and even when you were bad, you were still my sweet angel girl one day a flood will come and wash our sins away it will smash our cares into the earthen clay from the lips of every judge will be the cry of "Halleluja" from the Lakes of Ponchartrain to my grave in Ponchatoula (nickjaina.com/ponchatoula) |
Well, spring is a time for new love
to pursue love under the grapevines and I was a child of plenty but I lent it all out to you |
Well, winter is a time for thieving
for deceiving in the pockets of overcoats and I'll be gone for the season but you must believe that I'll be back in the springtime (nickjaina.com/springtime) |
Una mattina mi son svegliato
O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao Una mattina mi son svegliato E ho trovato l’invasor. O partigiano, portami via O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao O partigiano, portami via Che mi sento di morir. E se io muoio da partigiano O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao E se io muoio da partigiano Tu mi devi seppellir Me seppellire lassù in montagna O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao Me seppellire lassú in montagna Sotto l’ombra di un bel fior. E la gente che passeranno O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao E la gente che passeranno Mi diranno, “che bel fior!” E questo è il fiore del partigiano O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao ciao E questo è il fiore del partigiano Morto per la libertà. |
One morning, I woke up
Oh goodbye beautiful, goodbye One morning, I woke up And I found the invader. Oh partisan, take me away Oh goodbye, beautiful, goodbye Oh partisan, take me away For I feel ready to die. And if I die with the partisans Oh goodbye, beautiful, goodbye And if I die with the partisans You must bury me. Bury me up on the mountain Oh goodbye, beautiful, goodbye Bury me up on the mountain Under the shadow of a beautiful flower. And the people that will pass by Oh goodbye, beautiful, goodbye And the people that will pass by They will tell me, “what a beautiful flower!” This is the flower of the partisan Oh goodbye, beautiful, goodbye This is the flower of the partisan Who died for our freedom. |
“Vile koilen iz a fargenigen
Ver es hot nor ungegrate, Koilen iz zeher shvare tzu kriegen Men darf shtein in der line ganz shpate.” |
“Because coal is a pleasure
For whoever has it at hand Coal is very difficult to get One must stand in line very late.” (lyricstranslate.com) |
Sean Penzo is a composer, cellist, and writer currently based in Pittsburgh, PA
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