Day 23: Dog Stars (with H)

 

Day 23: Dog Stars (with HL Howells)

Part of my song-a-day writing project for January 2024

Lyrics:

Dog Star
1/23/24 – David Coile & H. Howells ��

Narrator:
This is a story about breaking free,
Sneaking out of the maze of domestication.
Sidewalks, and leashes, and having to heel
Working for morsels, being tempted to steal
Fences are looming on every side
Buildings eclipse our view of the sky

Dog:
Nose to the ground, leash dragging behind
Eyes closed / Ears closed / All the world comes through my nose
Follow this scent to where it goes
Sneaking, seeking, no one knows
What I know, I know, I can find

Narrator:
And so our hero follows the nose,
Leaving behind the familiar skyline
Spurred onward by the earthy fecal scent of the doings of unknown beings gone before,
Their hooves and claws have scarred the earth, revealing the score
Fallen bones, rules unknown
Flesh rotting off of those who never make it home

Dog:
Coolness descends, night’s digging in
Fingers of darkness bleed through my flesh, beneath my skin
Pick up the pace, to flee this place
The branches crack, the sky goes black
The blinding light of lightning strikes
I’m the bulls-eye for the sky to aim
All around me turns to flame

Dog: (Bridge)
Mind makes revoultions
Heart makes dissolutions
There is no solution
Pray for absolution
Can’t escape the mystery
Falling down from these trees
Into burning embers
Lose all that I remember
All . . . my . . . howls . . . break free . . .
My . . . soul . . . wails . . . please, please, please

Narrator: (Bridge)
Certain all is lost, doesn’t hear the coming whisper of the rain
Waves of rain / Quench the fire / as quickly as I came
Tears from the sky / wash clean the eyes
Heavens break open
And the clouds free, squealing,
Tails between their legs

Dog: (Coda)
Water pours from my nose / puddles flood my toes
Understanding ringing / dripping from my lips
My life has been spared / I’m no longer scared
But I lost my purchase / on my one wish
This is not my forest / Can’t pretend to own it
She took mercy on me / I do not deserve it
Can’t escape the beauty / Finally see the beauty
- In owning nothing / Everything is singing

Narrator: (Coda)
And so our hero lays down to rest
Vanquished by the knowledge that nothing is ours
And all victory is an illusion
But each of us, from the soggy forest floor,
Can see the stars . . .and the darkness

***

I got to our writing session a bit late, even though I actually showed up early and thought I had time to get a car wash... but I was wrong.

H is and I had talked before about songwriting on my Raw Songwriting podcast, but I got to experience her process first hand here. One thing I knew was that I wanted to write something using one of the latin rhythms she favors. She educated me about a couple of them, but we decided to with the Guapango rhythm. She said she wanted me to do some talk singing (to which I suggested we could have a narrator), which she's heard me a do a bit of. So that's what we started off with.

H had brought up the idea of not having to own something in order for it to be yours, which I thought was a beautiful concept, so that's what we decided to focus on. I can't remember how we got around to the dog metaphor, but I know that I pushed for more of an extended metaphor-- H would normally toggle back and forth between metaphor and directly personal. For me, metaphor IS personal, though maybe not direct.

H has a fascinating process. She basically thinks in poetry. When I'm writing by myself, I worry about being way too straight-forward with my lyrics, to the point that I'll do a first draft then go back over them to find a better way to make them interesting. But as we were discussing the story and message of the song, she would take whatever plain thing I said and made it beautiful.

She also has a non-linear way of writing it all down. She was writing on multiple pages and then numbering them to determine what order they were supposed to go. She also would brainstorm some words, then reorganize them based on if they were appropriate for major or minor chords, the various sections, rhythms. It was fascinating, but very different than my own process-- I had a hard time keeping up!

I'd say that H did most of the actual writing, and my input was more in the conceptualization and organization of the story and parts of the song. H is a force of nature, and it was super fun to work with her on this tune!