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Alive Again

by Michael Garfield

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1.
2.
You never said that it could be replaced I never knew that we could be erased And you're on your own But if the sentence is a way to waste A living allegory in its place Can we ever know? There is a vision of the Samothrace They kept me here to help eliminate The autonomous I never needed any hesitation Everything is in its way the same As it ever was And it's okay, it's okay... But when we never gave a hand a cage We very nearly set the walls aflame And it's all you know I didn't think that it would be a phase That everybody kept their wings displayed And we all go home And it's okay, it's okay...
3.
Ada 04:21
She's the Bun on a run She's the bun chunnarunk She's the Duchess Bunnachunk, it's true She went and pet a chicken Baby mind blown then You know she's the sweet Baby Goo So the Bun rode a train Didn't have to explain That Bun on a train on the track Then the sweet Baby Goo What else did she do? Ate guac, that is true, smack smack Ada, Ada, Baby Goo, I love you Then the Bun comes home And she smiles at the phone And a lullaby bump for you And then a sweet Ada Tater Baby Ada dream about a gator Hey potato face, sweet Blue Is it a bird or a plane? Or a helicopter mang? It's the Moon, es Le Lune, es La Luna But that sweet Bun such A good kid, what what Konk konk, nose, kiss, I love you Ada, Ada, Baby Goo, I love you She has a mom that I love I'm a hawk, she's a dove Though sometimes that's not true But we both love to snug Cuddle that baby bug Back it up, rub my butt on you Ada, Ada, Baby Goo, I love you
4.
5.
I dug your nails in your arm No blood but they left a mark You came to no harm But I still have the scars You hit me first but complained And landed me in suspension Because illegible pains Rarely merit attention And now the lessons endure Although the song doesn't change You're measured or you're ignored An indefensible claim And everyone in between Invisible or unseen We optimize our machines With only what we perceive These metaphors hide crucial depth But it's our lot to live with it Our egregores cannot protect The small and large they can't detect When they're seeing like a state They say they squeaky wheel's greased Campaigns get people released But when they're no one around Then that tree don't hit the ground And history's written by victors And evidence is suppressed Unless it registers Richters Expect it lost like the rest The integers rule common math But reals are far the larger set Your algebra cannot contain The novelty we generate When you're seeing like a state
6.
You never came when I called You never talked to the doll You never saw me at all I fated both of us hastily You knew the taste We'd never go missing But all I see is eyes and why I only see the sky for flies and light You only recognize... I said let's play chess You said "You digress" We met with a wall I wasn't nine at the time You were so fine And right with it all But all we need is wine, and I Will very likely write the sigh I heard you whispering at night...
7.
8.
Where is the 120th shrine? I searched everywhere on a map that I found online But I still can't find Gonna lose my mind I like to think that I'm a pretty smart guy But I look and I look and I still don't see So I must be blind I've spent too much time Trying to find this shrine I gotta get a life I stayed away from games and I got outside For seventeen years I learned guitar And deep insights But then my wife cut me a line And I pressed rewind Now I'm up at 5 and I don't know why Except I'm stuck at 119 and Jesus, I can't abide On a diatribe Gotta find that shrine or I'm stuck behind Michael, will you please just go to bed? I did not consent to losing you to this game You know we have two kids And this foolishness is Strangely reminiscent Of Jurassic World Alive Heard my high school BFF found 'em all and I Am consumed by a spirit of competition that isn't right I got Eventide on my very first try But where is that shrine? Sooner or later my stamina wheel will redline And I'll reach the point where I'll face the facts and must decide If I wanna die on the hill of the 120th shrine
9.
10.
Wing It 06:16
11.
12.
The webbing between All of the galaxies Mapped by a slime mould God, am I getting old? The rupture of scene Each time you grab the ring Leaves you out in the cold Lost in the manifold The sequence is green We're on the silver screen Caught in a chokehold Got by the kobolds But we made it free From all the majesty Surrounding our boat Our shady little toehold And found release Creative constraints? Please! With the deer and the kestrels Two moose and a wild girl...
13.

about

🎸 Watch the 4K live concert videos:
"Seeing Like A State" - youtu.be/R5ZNMznzFWc
"Wing It" - youtu.be/NtsEVLS35e0

🎸 Stream the songs only on Audius (90% goes to the artist):
audius.co/michaelgarfield/album/alive-again-meow-wolf-tumbleroot-2021.12.14-91745

🎸 About this recording:

My first live, in-person stage show in (precisely) two years, opening for electroacoustic harpist Mary Lattimore and electroacoustic accordionist Walt McClements at a show that was going to be at Meow Wolf's House of Eternal Return — the very spot I'd opened for Papadosio at my last concert before the pandemic — but was moved due to the Meow Wolf holiday staff party.

In some respects the destination venue, Tumbleroot Distillery, is even better, and at any rate as Dave Matthews says, "Turns out, not where but who you're with that really matters." And in this case I was blessed with family and friends who all turned out to hear me play (and, in the case of my kids and my friends', run around shrieking like the lovely little demons that they are).

Given the two years in various degrees of lockdown, and in spite of the fact I played fully improvised sets for years, this is the first time in my life I've played a concert of ENTIRELY new singer-songwriter material (mostly off my EP House Ship On A Hill with a few as-yet-unassigned new numbers). Consequently, it's a mess. (But we love messes, here, right? Frothy, new, untested, bold, adventurous, raw, incomplete...)

These are COVID songs, for sure: about the Seattle Autonomous Zone as I saw it reflected in my new family's one-bedroom downtown Santa Fe apartment; about my silly little girl who helped to keep us sane amidst the tumult of that year; about the way that institutions cannot see us in our fullness, and the hardships that result; about the inchoate loss, longing, and transcendent hope I felt so many nights, reviewing the weight of past lives that seemed to have no place in present day; about the medicine of exploration that I found in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild after the job and parenthood and plague all clipped my wings and brought more than ten years of constant motion to a grinding halt; about feeling the universe in all its grandeur funneled into a hot tub on a cold coyote-fenced back porch, under a shade sail and countless stars.

Thank you for listening, and enjoy.

Michael

credits

released December 14, 2021

💫 Michael Garfield: voice, guitar, electronics, engineering, design
Subscriptions: patreon.com/michaelgarfield
More: linktr.ee/michaelgarfield
💫 Christian Lemp: cover photo

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Michael Garfield Santa Fe, New Mexico

Singer-songwriter, avant-guitarist, and live electronic producer all at once, Michael's dynamic live shows and intricate albums takes listeners on emotional trips spanning folk tradition and the avant-garde.

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