Woke up from a bad dream early this Sunday morning and was stewing about it for a while before remembering about good old trusty FAWM and an indica sample somebody handed off to me the other night.
I’d recorded “Seventh Seal” off TV and the other night was finally watching it for the first time after all these years of knowing the iconic imagery of it all through popular culture. I was so surprised that Death showed up on the beach in, basically, the first scene. It kind of made me laugh and think of the starkness of the northern climate cultures sometimes.
As I get older and wonder what to write about, I started listening to what my favorite songwriters wrote about at the same age. I told a songwriter friend about that and he mentioned mortality themes but I’m not sure if it was necessarily that. It’s not something I think about that much, I probably wrote more about death when I was younger. Anyway, I had that image of Death in my head this week so, just kind of went with it.
I thought of the title first, a typical thing of playing with titles of songs, Sunday morning songs that is, maybe do a mashup of Kris Kristofferson and the Velvet Underground with a soundtrack by ABBA. I wrote a couple lines off the top of my head noticing familiar lyrics that I seoon realized came from “Get Off My Cloud” by the Stones and was using that chord progression at first. Got into more of that minor key mode which worked good and wrote the chorus real quick and forced this track in one take on my phone. I was going to write more verses later but suddenly the idea of a one minute song felt right for this one.
Sometime those dreams
can drive you out of your bed
and even after you wake up they
can drive you out of your head
You go to the beach but there
he is grinning by the chess set
In that dreadful black shroud and
a Walkman tuned to the dead
Sunday Bjorning
comes without a warning
you just have to pick up
a piano
& play it away
@toddnorem Feb 2022
I like this. Good phone recording too. I think it probably could be expanded upon if you were so inclined. Big question for me: does he have a Walkman tuned to the dead or it it tuned to the Dead?
@toddnorem Feb 2022
Really want to hear this one. There's something wrong with the demo...not linking properly. I'll check back later.
@tspoon Feb 2022
Very cool one Joe! I like the sound, and would love to hear more. This seems like the start of a great ballad, or the soundtrack to an awesome phsychological thriller. and cute title. Bjorning?
@adambeiter Feb 2022
Love the overall feel of this song, how it almost draws on Nordic themes and linguistics to create a very haunting and desolate atmosphere. The chess set and Walkman imagery is poetically specific. I love the "black shroud" reference when dealing with grief in lyrics, I first picked it up from Sufjan Stevens's "Should Have Known Better" and it's super cool to hear it used here as well. Superb job!
@bradbrubaker Feb 2022
Hahaha, a one minute ditty about the nightmare of death through the lens of Ingmar Bergman. So unexpected. Very listenable.