What did I ever do wrong (feat. Gabrielle)

 

New song recording!

 

You can download the track here What did I ever do wrong.

Or stream it from my web site at Dog-on-blues, or from Soundcloud.

Every song has a story. This song has a bit of a winded story behind it. It started off when I wrote the songs for my musical in progress, Wake not the dead. This is a horror / love story musical with some twists. The story goes that Walter, a rich baron from some weird place just south of Transilvania revived his childhood lover from the grave. He then sat with the little problem of his newly-revived-from-the-grave-ex-lover-and-now-new-girl-friend was in no mood to share him and his house with his wife. So, Walter had to tell his wife to get out.

Swanhilda, Walter's wife, answered him with this lament.

The story of the song does not end there. Originally it was written as a rather showtunes song. And waited on the rack for further attention. I started writing songs for Annemie since the start of this year and record her songs in my studio. Up,to now, I wrote about ten songs for her. One of the songs she wanted was a sad blues, with a piano triplets track, similar to what can be heard in the Guns and roses song, Since you've been gone.

After about the third attempt of writing lyrics, I dug the lyrics of this song out from the grave and showed it to her. Happy with what she read, but not happy with the music, we decided to change the song to a blues song. She then came up with a beautifull tune from Zaz as a reference.

With these four things in mind I reworked the song. The Zaz song for the beginning, Guns and roses in the background, the blues tune and the lyrics from Wake not the dead all came together in this song.

Not long, and well, Annemie decided to drop this song from her repertoir, leaving me with what I considdered to be a very beautiful tune. Not wantng to let it die on the rack, I sent the song in to Studio Pros to see what I can do and asked Gabrielle to do the vocals.

The results are now ready for your enjoyment!

I want to add lead guitars, but decided that I will have to leave some space for future surprise! What do you think? Does it need a lead guitar?

Those who followed my blog from the start will recognize Gabrielle's lovely voice in the role of Cathy in the musical, The exile, where she is featured on the songs, I have never and Prisoner of your spell.

 

Long long time

Track: Long long time

Album: Out takes from the Exile concept album recordings

Remember the exile? Off course you remember the exile! This is a blog started about the exile. The exile is a musical and this blog is about everything musical and theatre.

The recordings of the concept album for the exile had about 16 tracks. Why do I say about. Last count, it was exactly sixteen! Anyway, those sixteen tracks was representative of the songs of the musical, but it was not everything. There are a few other songs as well - some of them were recorded, but did not make it unto the final issued album.

I am glad to present to you one more of those tracks which was recorded, but not included on the release.

Long long time.

After Hugo has been intruduced to his son, which he did not even knew he had until now, he sits down and fills his son, Tyler in on what was going on since he left South Africa and went into exile. At the end of the track he sits down and try to explain to himself why he never returned to his home country, even after he reached the goal of democracy in his homeland.

To listen to the whole album from track one to the end, go to the link at the top of this page or just click on this link.

There was nothing wrong with original vocal recording and to let the work goes to waste would do injustice. The song did not make it because there was something wrong with the songwriting part of it. The verse vs. chorus just did not work. For this remix, I try to solve part of the problems, firstly by not having a chorus. The song form is thus a AABA form pure. I've thrown in a bridge with a brass instrumental not just for variety. The purpose of that interlude is to give the stage actors a moment to do what they do, i.e. Hugo turns away from Tyler, to whom he was addressing the first part. He looks around to the other room where Cathy is talking to Melissa and then starts to sing the last verse, half to himself, but also so that Tyler can hear him.

I wanted to rewrite the song completely with new words - and still rederves the right to do so, but this week a bright idea hit me. Well, I had a day off from work to start with and decided to use the day productively. I decided to give the track a bit more epic sounding orchestration.

Let me know if you like it!

 

The challenge

We are now nearing the final scene of our story. Anthony has been living with Pamela for some time now. He does not have a job. He drinks a lot, stay out late night with his friends playing pool, and just pass out in awkward places.

Pamela had no alternative. She allowed Anthony to take advantage of her just because she did not want to end up all alone. Now things have changed a bit. Hugo appeared on the scene. Now Pamela has a choice.

In the previous song, Hugo told Anthony that he is not welcome anymore. Anthony however told Hugo to get lost, as it is not his choice who should stay with Pam. She is the only one who can make that choice.

In this scene, Pam steps up. She is however not telling Anthony outright to take his bag and walk. She is giving Anthony a last chance by telling him that she will marry him if he gets a job and start to behave.

Track: The challenge

 

PAMELA

(1A)

LISTEN TO ME ANTHONY

YOU ARE ABUSING THE HOSPITALITY

MY SON HAS ALLOWED YOU TO MAKE

A NUISANCE ONLY FOR MY OWN SAKE

 

(2B)

YOU SAY THAT YOU WANT TO MARRY ME

LET ME THEN GIVE YOU THIS OPPORTUNITY

I WILL ACCEPT YOUR OFFER TODAY

IF YOU WILL DO WHAT I SAY

 

(3C)

STOP DRINKING WITH YOUR FRIENDS ALL THE TIME

FIND A JOB TO EARN YOUR DIME

START ACTING LIKE A MAN OF MINE

AND START TO PROVIDE FOR MY NEEDS

 

(4A)

I ASK THIS OF YOU ANTHONY

I ASK YOU TO DO THIS IF YOU DO CARE FOR ME

I ASK YOU TO OBEY

AND I ONLY ASK YOU TO CHANGE YOUR WAYS

 

(5C)

STOP DRINKING WITH YOUR FRIENDS ALL THE TIME

STAY AT HOME AND TALK TO ME

NO MORE PLAYING POOL EVERY NIGHT

OR PASSING OUT IN THE LAVATORY

 

(6A)

FIND A JOB TO EARN A WAGE

RENT A HOUSE AND GIVE ME SOME PLACE

BUY ME WHAT I NEED

ONLY THEN CAN YOU MARY ME

(7C)

STOP DRINKING WITH YOUR FRIENDS ALL THE TIME

STAY AT HOME AND TALK TO ME

NO MORE PLAYING POOL EVERY NIGHT

OR PASSING OUT IN THE LAVATORY

 

(8A)

FIND A JOB TO EARN A WAGE

RENT A HOUSE AND GIVE ME SOME PLACE

BUY ME WHAT I NEED

ONLY THEN CAN YOU MARY ME

 

I'm going home

Today I wish to interupt our discussions around the busness side of things and return to our story. Last week we left our story where Hugo's life has been thrown upside down. For all the years he believed that all his ties back to South Africa has been broken. There was no reasn for him to return. Now for the first time, he learns that he has a son back ithere. As he went to bed, he thinks about what this means. In his dreams he remembers the promises that he made. Promises that he did not keep.

The next mornng, when he wakes up, he has made up his mind. He will go back to talk to Pamela again.he buys a ticket and packs his bags.

In this song he is ready to leave. This is his goodbye song.

Track: I'm going home

Album: The Exile, concept album recordingArtist: Eric Swardt

(1a)

Tyler, my dear son

I thank you for taking me home again

Even though this is something I wanted

but I would never have been able to do

but now I'm going home after all

(2a)

Manual my old friend

so I say farewell to you one more time

so many years and so many thingshave we gone through

and so many things that we have done

but now I'm going home after all

(3b)

While you were aboard to claim the reward

I was a fool who never played the rule

now it is my turn to claim what I have earned

and go back where I belong

(4a)

Goodbye my dear

You were a true friend for all these years

Please do not cry

Have a last drink with me

Wish me joy until eternity'

cause now i'm going home to be free

(5a')

I bid you fare thee well

I wish that one day you will be happy again

and one day you will find

someone so kind who will make you happy again

Someone who deserves someone like you

------------------------------------------------------

 

Anybody remembers that epic scene from Rocky Horror picture show when Frank 'n Furter says goodbye?

 

 

 

Will you forever sleep

Last year (2012) James Fraser (on vocals) and I recorded a song from one of my musicals-in-progress for halloween.

You can isten to this recording on soundcloud.

This song is from the opening scene for the musical, Wake not the dead (a working title). It is a horror musical, based on the work with the same title by Johann Ludwig Tieck.

The first scene in act 1 starts with Walter bemoaning the death of his childhood lover. Brunhilda has been dead for about ten years. After her death, Walter married Swanhilda, with whom he has two wonderful little kiddies, but Walter is not happily married. Every night, he is crying and moaning next to the grave of Brunhilda.

We will not yet give the whole story away. For a teaser, you can find the original story by using google. What I can tell you now, is that this stage play will scare the wits out of most. For our musical, many small changes will be made to the plot to keep it more interesting.

The idea of horror musicals is nothing new. Probably the most famous one is Richard O'Brien's Rocky horror picture show, which became much more than just a cult classic. More recently, Stephen Sondheim had a huge success with Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Both these musicals have really, really great scores to carry them. While Rocky Horror is a hit for its bizare and amusing, Sweeney Todd is mixed with a fair amount of humor, as illustrated in the great performance of Angela Lansbury and George Hearn in the clip below.

 

Off course, Phantom of the opera can also be regarded as a horror, but most fans will rather put it in the drame / romance bin. I am sure you will be able to name many, many more, like e.g. Dracula that made it to the Broadway stages, and probably a few thousand more lurking in theaters all over. Then there are some more direct-to-movie horrors, like Hard rock zombies. Some would put Mama Mia also in this group, but now we are just confusing horror musicals with horrible musicals.

 

Ghost town

Today I'm going to break the tradition a little bit to make things interesting and post about other shows I am working on besides The exile. I'm also going to give away an mp3 to my blog followers.

I have been asked once: How many musicals do you have inside of you?

Some composers might have only one or two musicals, but for most - we have many. There are all these ideas that we are half working on. In a way it is good, as it gives our brains a break to concentrate on something different when we get stuck on a project, or it seems like a project does not move along fast enough because we are waiting for somebody else to catch up (book writers, producers, directors, publicists, etc)

I am currently working on four shows, including The exile. One of these shows is Ghost town. This one is only in the concept stage, with one concept song recorded, i.e. the Title track, Ghost town. Click on this link to download the mp3, or go to this page to stream. I am particularly happy with this version, which features a great vocal performance by Jeanette.

Enjoy!