So as I’ve mentioned, I’m titling the album Ghosts In A Burning City, after a line from a Stephen Vincent Benet poem. But it occurred to me that that title was too evocative not to use in a song.
And so there will actually be a title track for the album, and it’s half-written. It’s a sort of dub track, minor key, extremely long (with one verse and chorus written, it currently stands at over five minutes, and it’ll probably almost go twice that length). The lyrics (so far) are about…well, basically, about the Third World. It’s dedicated to Fela Kuti and Joe Strummer.
I’m gonna add guitar to it tonight — right now it’s just percussion, bass and synth washes, along with sort of hauntological samples from Freesound.
But even in its current form, I’ve been listening to it on repeat for the past few days, because I fucking love it. It’s menacing and epic and it may end up being the best thing I’ve ever written.
Current lyrics:
Drink cobra whiskey from a paper cup There is no water — it’s all dried up And when we speak Our tongues stick to our teeth They burn the bodies in a cardboard town A hundred kilometers further down The river Another monument to grief
La la la la la la sing the whores on the corner La la la la la la sing the rude boys who are Pissing in the gutter And crying in their sleep
Bang bang bang bang says the man with the big gun Bang bang bang bang says the kid with the steel drum Playing in the alleyway And dying in the street
We are ghosts in a burning city Ghosts in a burning city Burning, watch it burning Watch it burn
I’ll post a sample (or the whole thing on muxtape) when it’s closer to being finished.