(Edit now with lyrics)
Hi all - I thought I'd post this here quietly to get some first comments before calling it finished.
This was for the key challenge of course, and the allocated key was really not right for me. But I got about 14 tracks in before thinking too much about it so it was hard to restart. On the bright side, like this my voice sounds exactly like Tom Waits. I do like this song so I may re-record a little higher.
Background: I read somewhere about Russian soldiers being recruited from remote villages and told that Ukraine was a crappy country that needed to be liberated, only to arrive there and find that Ukrainians were doing fine and had luxuries they had never seen before like roads and streetlights. And dying sucks but going back to live in poverty is not that appealing either. And for the ordinary ones, the fighting seems all for nothing anyway.
Anyhow, let's have your comments - all welcome.
https://on.soundcloud.com/hFeMrBeneath the Streetlight
V1
There’s only one way in to my home town
Up the mountain, past the dogs, along the track
For guys like me there's only one way out
In uniform to serve the motherland
Far from home, the first lampposts I’ve seen
The local kids like us but better fed
Time to bomb your roads and libraries
The enemy are barbarians they said
CH
Beneath the streetlight
There lies a fading shape
Beneath the streetlight
A dying dog, or someone’s son
The streetlight fights for life
The streetlight dies
And nothing ever changes in the long run
V2
I picture living back in my home town
For every guy ten girls are waiting there
On feast days one of them might drag us out
To see the war memorial in our chairs
The only gift I have to give are stories
Of the Motherland and how she gave away my legs
But no ministers ever died or lived like this
The enemies are the foreigners they said
CH
Beneath the streetlight
There lies a fading shape
Beneath the streetlight
A dying dog, or someone’s son
To feel something I’ll shoot him in the eye
Cos nothing ever changes in the long run
CH
Beneath the streetlight
There lies a fading shape
Beneath the streetlight
A dying dog, or someone’s son
Not time to die, no reason to survive
Cos nothing ever changes in the long run