#civilizations #downfall #power #singersongwriter #history #acoustic

Over more than twenty years of participating in February Album Writing Month (FAWM), I’ve settled into a workflow that lets me capture a solid recording almost as soon as a new song exists. Everything begins with a guitar progression and a melody I’m humming into place. Once a few words surface, the actual songwriting kicks in. Even with all the digital tools available today, I prefer to keep things grounded by playing real instruments. I print the lyrics in large type, hang the sheet above a camera, and run through the song a few times. Usually the fourth or fifth take is the one I keep. FAWM taught me early on not to get stuck chasing “perfect.” After recording, I pull the audio from the video and drop it into a mixing program. Most of my effect settings are locked in beforehand. Then I add extra vocals and additional instruments—guitar, banjo, piano, keyboard. Once the mix sounds clean enough, I sync it back to the video. Every year I pick a new two-tone color theme for these recordings. If a song is captured this way during FAWM, it’s considered finished. After the month ends, I usually have three or four keepers that I test live on stage. Performing them helps the songs develop, but I never rerecord them. Around ninety percent of everything I’ve written in the last two decades began during FAWM—simple, consistent, effective. These days I use ChatGPT to check my lyrics for grammar and spelling and to offer suggestions; before that, I leaned on native-speaking FAWMers. The audio mix I upload to Bandcamp is identical to the one in the videos.

Podsafe audio: https://studio273.bandcamp.com/track/downfall

It happened many times during history we know It’s a given fact civilizations come and go

The Mongols and Mayans they all had their peak But even the strongest prove to turn out weak

Someday someday empires fade away

Cultural identity, knowledge and history social complexity, religion and equality

Every now and then power rearranges Because of warfare pandemics, climate changes

The Vikings, the Romans the loss of a society Are we close to the downfall the downfall of you and me?

Someday someday no kingdom’s here to stay

Archaeology, infrastructure and industry AI, economy, migration and sympathy

Cities turn to ashes intelligence lost in sand Everything we’ve got slips out of our hands

We stream, we consume we think we are free All we ever had will vanish in the sea

Someday someday we will be passé someday someday we will be passé

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