Reileen van Kaile

Haha, I just realized that I signed my fandom name on that last entry. It's fixed already, but, uh, whoops.

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Sink
by Reileen van Kaile

push off to an uncertain journey
to a distant, misty land
I stand on the edge of something greater
far more massive than I am

nothing much but everything
sees me through the days
with gentle lullabies of apathy
closing my empty gaze

no heed of the warning from above
no need of even my own pitiful love

too late to escape this grave that I ride
too soon to realize the white star of hope has died
I am lost to this life
I am grieving for the dying lights
of this broken, sinking ship
fading from this fight
and drowning in the shadows of my fears

cradled in the arms
of chilling, boundless depths
floating in the tear
that I wish I could've wept

for who knew such a tiny scratch
would rip the armor from my bones
I know, oh, now, I know
I am never coming home

too late to escape this grave that I ride
too soon to realize the white star of hope has died
I am lost to this life
I am grieving for the dying lights
of this broken, sinking ship
fading from this fight
and drowning in the shadows of my fears

too late to escape this gave that I ride
too soon to realize the white star of hope has died

too late to reverse the sands of time
too soon to believe in the hope of salvation mine
I will never know the pain
of life's brilliant holy flame
in this broken, sunken ship
frozen in the depths
ever drowning in the shadows of my fears

I'd been toying with the idea of writing a song about this strange fog of fear-born apathy enveloping me, but it wasn't until I visited the Titanic Museum during my trip to Branson that I got the idea to use the Titanic sinking as a vague metaphor for that feeling. I'm...not entirely sure I succeeded in merging the personal with the historical and getting something that was close to the intention I wanted. And I'm not especially happy with or proud of the construction of these lyrics (which, as always, are subject to change as I plot out melodies and think of marginally better replacements). But I managed to get a good chorus melody (...I think), so as long as I can turn this into an enjoyable song to perform, I think I'm good to go. I'm reminded of something I read about Sylvia Plath in the introduction to a compilation of her poetry that I have - that "her attitude to her verse was artisan-like: if she couldn't get a table out of the material, she was quite happy to get a chair, or even a toy." Personally, I think this little wannabe song-table is more like a dollhouse chair at this point, but hey, it's better than nothing.

-Reileen
boys, play well into the night

One Day [rough]

One Day

I know you feel the storm that brews beyond that sky
I know you fear that help will pass you by
But this path you walk is your own
So even if you fall, stand up and move on
Because I know

One day, one day
You'll reach your El Dorado
Where all is as it seems
One day, one day
You'll find the Shangri-La
Of your fevered dreams
One day...

I know you fight to keep control
I know it feels like the trail has gone cold
But just take the detours and see
That you're going where you need to be
Believe me when I say

One day, one day
You'll reach your El Dorado
Where all is as it seems
One day, one day
You'll find the Shangri-La
Of your fevered dreams
One day...

One day, one day
You'll reach your El Dorado
Where all is as it seems
One day, one day
You'll find the Shangri-La
Of your fevered dreams
One day...

One of the things I try to keep in mind as I compose the piano for my songs is that I want it to be as distinctive and interesting as the lyrics and vocal line, and not "just" an accompaniment to those things. Ideally, if you played just the piano part of my songs, it should sound like an almost complete instrumental piece in and of itself. Part of it is just that it sounds better to me - it's one of the many things I love about Vienna Teng's music, even when she's already advanced enough in her music career to be able to allow for other instrumentation when composing her songs. (Just wait 'til y'all hear the piano for "Antebellum"! Lovely, lovely song.) Part of it is also feeling self-conscious about the vast difference in ability between my piano performance skills and my vocal skills, hoping to make up for my lack of vocal skills at the moment with some interesting piano work. Unfortunately, then you have to take into account that my actual composing skills are even worse than my vocal skills, so now here I am, a bit of a trainwreck of musical (in)ability...

At any rate, this is, I suppose, one of those "writer's block" songs, which would explain why the lyrics are simpler and shorter than usual. I was just tired of playing my usual songs, and I was stuck on my unfinished songs, so I threw this one together the other night when I probably should have been doing homework. I'm not entirely sure what to do with it now; as usual, once I get the vocal melody and the chords down, I'm at a loss for what to do for the piano accompaniment that isn't just the same shit over and over again.

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Also, the Gods help me - I ordered Inland Territory straight from the German Amazon website. The album can't arrive fast enough. o_o!

Also also, there's finally a clip of the song Vienna wrote for a singer-songwriter "reality show" called Sagebrush Valentine, in which a group of musicians were given a title and had to write a song based on that title in an hour. You can see Vienna's version of "Nothing Left For Us to Find" here on Vimeo.

-Reileen
I am left silent here, trying so hard to understand