No Rival

I'm not sure I can top this song... which makes the name of it a bit amusing. The lyrics are not about me, but about the great Scottish-Australian painter Ian Fairweather, and more specifically about his desperate, close to suicidal, solo-rafting voyage from Darwin to Indonesia. He described in his autobiography how, when he got lost at sea, he began to hallucinate and saw things which changed his painting forever. (I've made an interpretation of this event, as I see it, rather than how art scolars might describe it.) The dense, complicated sound of this song has made it a slight nightmare to mix, but I think I finally nailed it now.

Lyrics

Floating on this raft
I let life pass
I let life pass
This is what I needed
My solitude completed
The universe conceded

Laying on my back
Tied to the mast
Tied to the mast
A silver net has veiled me
Shimmering lines conceal me
A million shapes to heal me

If I don't make the shore
At least I let go
At least I let go
That's all I ever dreamed of
It's all I ever dreamed of
It's all I ever dreamed

Ah here
There's just no good rival to me
And there's just no good rival to thee
Ah here
There's just no good rival to me
And there's just no good rival to thee

Ian Fairweather


His hut in Australia
More pictures from the Heiser Gallery

Caught

First song out in my remixing project is this rather funky, unsynthy piece of heartbreak pop. It wasn't meant to exist, it pretty much wrote itself. I hope you like the mix (and the enhanced static from the drum samples).


Photo by Erik Berglin

Lyrics

I was caught with the sun in my eyes
For one moment I was set alight
I followed but I was too late
You'd caught a moral I can't erase

Hey! Arms are raised but I kept following you

You were born with the sun in your eyes
You're right to keep it just to yourself
I clench a stone in my hand
Forgot I've got nothing to give

Hey! Arms are raised but I kept swallowing truth

I'm pillaging the stars
'Cause they followed you
Into my gloom
You're floating out too far
Under love I loom
Under love I loom

I gather you'll be fine
With so many lovers
Who'll cry for you
I gather they'll be fine
With a love like you
With a love like you