#251 - How my Muse works, sort of.

I don't have much to talk about - well, okay, I do have some song links I wanted to inflict on y'all, but they're saved in a .txt file on my laptop and I'm at the school computer lab at the moment - so I'll babble a bit about how I write the lyrics for my songs, since I just recently churned out something at the library.

1. "IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME"

I was recently inspired to write a song based on the fact that apparently the etymology of the term "sphinx" refers to the fact that the sphinx killed her victims by strangling them in her jaws. (I found this out because I was Wiki'ing the entry for sphinxes because I recently found out - relatively speaking - that Kira from my NaNoWriMo project is a sphinx daemon. Such happy little coincidences.)

In this case, the "sphinx" in question is a girl in a relationship who is stubbornly withholding something about her past experiences from her boyfriend, while at the same time demanding that sort of information from him. It's obviously a very fucked-up, unequal relationship, and it's pretty much "strangling" the poor guy and making him miserable.

2. "THE MUSE DEMANDS AN EXPLANATION FOR THIS BULLSHIT"

Much as in drawing, I begin with a rough sketch of what I have in mind, which usually has no structure at all and makes absolutely no fucking sense. Half the time I don't even really know what to write. I just need to get something on the page, and to see what sorts of images are bouncing about in my brain. 'Sides, you gotta start somewhere, even if it's with wordvomit.

sphinx

so mysterious you are
mona lisa smile hiding
who knows what kind of wiles
won't you tell me what
secrets you keep?
the weight of what I don't
know about you
strangles me
chokes me

the riddles you ask of me
are too black keeping me
the unanswerable truth of
your her smile

beautiful as death
fatal as a poison breath
he knows he shouldn't
come too close to her
for she'll only wring the last of his cries
from his throat

Did you understand any of that? I didn't understand any of that, and I'm the one who wrote that crap.

3. "IF I SUCK IN MY WAIST AND DON'T BREATHE I CAN FIT IN THESE JEANS"

Now that I've got something to work with, as graceless and fugly as it undoubtedly is, I begin to impose something resembling order upon the madness.

sphinx

only silence reigns
where love used to be
he can't quite figure out
what she wants doesn't want him to see

the riddles she asks
are more than he can return
the weight of shadows unknown
is something he'll never learn

beautiful as death
her sweet poison breath
keeps him beguiled
keeps him from uncovering peeling back discovering
the truth of her (ancient?) smile

is it enough for trust? he wonders aloud:
he wonders "is it enough to trust?"
she kisses him and says
"it is enough, for because we you must"

beautiful as death
her sweet poison breath
keeps him beguiled
keeps him from discovering
the truth of her haunted smile

beautiful as death
her sweet poison breath
strangles his heart
strangles the joy and warmth
from

Looking slightly better, but there's still some creative cellulite hanging around this thing. Time to take a scalpel to this baby!

4. "I'MMA GONNA CUT 'CHOO, FOO'"

I decide that this seems mostly good enough to work into a (mostly) final version, so I start chipping away at this thing, smoothing things out. A word cut here, a line added there, phrases tossed around like salad...

sphinx

only silence reigns
where love used to be
he can't figure out
what she won't let him see

the riddles she asks
are more than he can return
the weight of shadows unknown
is something he'll never learn

beautiful as death
her sweet poison breath
keeps him beguiled
keeps him from discovering
the truth of her lifeless smile

in heated words, he wonders aloud:
"is it enough to trust?"
soft kiss on drought-struck lips says:
"it is, because you must"

beautiful as death
her sweet poison breath
keeps him beguiled
keeps him from discovering
the truth of her lifeless smile

but it won't be long now, no
it won't be long until before
her very presence secret chains chokes
the cries life from his throat

it won't be long now, no, no
it won't be long now, no, no
no, no

Now that's reasonably complete enough to work with if I want to put it to music. Which I may or may not...I don't like the lyrics that much, but I need to practice composing and singing anyway.

***

ANT120 = DONE. I just need to turn in the final paper - I did some edits based on the professor's comments about our group's presentation in class, and I'm waiting to hear back from two other people about whether they're fine with this current version being dropped in the professor's mailbox. JPN104 final is tomorrow at eight-fucking-forty-five in the morning, but I don't anticipate major problems with it (besides the early time). ART233 is Thursday at 2:45pm, and I'll need to catch up on slides I missed in lecture by downloading them from Blackboard and then WikiGoogling for information.

-Reileen
when your heart is broken a thousand times