Talk about shaking off the cobwebs! Basically, nothing that I had planned for the demoing process worked, and also I could have made things a lot easier for myself if I'd picked a key of E instead of F, and a slightly faster tempo, maybe 88 bpm instead of 84. That would have made recording vocals a lot less painful, for everyone. Which is to say that I may redo the demo at the end of the event. This can just about get the idea across. It should stay strictly within FAWM, which is why it's not downloadable. I wanted to do a keyboard-based song because arthritis is slowly messing up my guitar playing ability. Unfortunately, I'm not a keyboard player and I'm not very good at working with sequencers, so I resorted to cutting and pasting individual chords into GarageBand. Not something I want to keep doing, and as it happens, I have new meds that keep the arthritis under control a bit better, so for the rest of FAWM, I'll probably record things the way I did in the past few events, focusing on guitars. The song is about movement, and being on the down slope. This year, I've had more doubts about whether I could do FAWM at all than ever before, so that went into the song. @nadine wasn't too far off suggesting I'd do some drone synth, but this does have multiple chords if you wait long enough.

[Spoken word: A: Y’know, I don’t know if I can do this anymore. B: Yah, I hear ya. It’s a lot harder now than it used to be. A: Yeah, but not just that. Everything else has gotten harder too. I’m getting squeezed. B: Hookay. Well, look at it this way. What you’re doing now isn’t just for today, or this month, or even this year. It’s a snapshot of how you felt at this time. It’s how you remember.]

As a boy, I would go skating, though I could barely skate at all Stumbling towards the long horizon Saw my warm breath in the cold

As a teen, I took up drawing To this day, I haven’t stopped Built a world and told my stories Underplanned and overwrought

There’s a joy in just not caring about what others think of you Keep your hands and your attention On what’s right in front of you

Still a teen, I started playing On a black Korean strat Crammed so much into those short years learning things that can’t be taught.

As a man, I took up running, made the middle of the pack One foot forward, then another Every street a perfect track

[Break, melody over chorus part]

[Hold root chord for longer, give it time] [Spoken word: All right, here we go]

Now I’m old, my body broken And my mind a misted glass Swollen joints on black guitar strings, Keep on moving while it lasts

I see myself on the horizon Out of touch, and out of breath Marking time till I stop moving And lay my weary head to rest.