Posted on Leave a comment

Blacklisting

I wrote this song while driving home from work one evening.  To understand the song, you have to understand that “blacklisting” refers to the way most traditional Antivirus programs work – they have a list of “bad” software that isn’t allowed to run on your computer.  My company, CoreTrace, has a product called “Bouncer”, which takes the opposite approach, called (surprise, surprise) “whitelisting”.  Whitelisting is technology that says “if you aren’t on my list of authorized software, you can’t run”.  Learn more about it at our web site.

I recorded this song with the help of my talented brother-in-law, Dave.  Dave plays guitars and bass.  Note, as you listen, the benefits of having a good musician do most of the work for you.  I do the keyboards, vocals, and drum programming.  “Drum programming”, I call it.  Really it’s just “pick a drum track and drag it into the right place.”

A fine video of the song can be found here

©2010 Stephen G Brown

Blacklisting’s okay
Blacklisting is fine
I told myself all the lies about it
And you know I nearly lost my mind

Monday konfiker gets into my site
Quickly chaos ensues
If only I’d Bouncer I’d be alright
I wouldn’t be singing these blues

Blacklisting’s okay
Blacklisting ain’t bad
I told myself all the lies about it
And I lost everything that I had

Blacklisting’s okay
Blacklisting is fine
I told myself all the lies about it
And you know I nearly lost my mind

Monday konfiker gets into my site
Quickly chaos ensues
If only I’d Bouncer I’d be alright
I wouldn’t be singing these blues

Now I got no job
I’m a washed up, broken slob
And some kid who thinks he’s better than me
Did what I should have done
Brought in Bouncer and won
[jibberish]

Blacklisting’s okay
Blacklisting is fine
I told myself all the lies about it
And you know I nearly lost my mind

Blacklisting’s okay
Blacklisting is fine
Blacklisting’s okay
Blacklisting is fine

Posted on Leave a comment

Let It Rain

We met some friends at Wall Drug Store in South Dakota this summer.  We headed up to Billings, Montana, where the father of the other family had to take a bus home.  From there, we travelled on to Yellowstone for a few days.  We camped one night in Billings, and while we were there, I wrote this song.  I changed the last two lines of the song yesterday (very big improvment), and recorded it last night.  My wife has suggested that I add another verse, and I think it is a brilliant suggestion.  Just got to get to it.  So you are getting three verses now, perhaps a fourth some day in the future.

©2010 Stephen G Brown

Hand in hand walking through the park
Clouds come up and the sky grows dark
But the sun’s still shining in my heart
So let it rain

Let it rain
Sun shines down on me
Let it rain
Wash everything clean

Piano sitting in the other room
Little fingers picking out a little tune
That little boy comes from me and you
So let it rain

Let it rain
Sun shines down on me
Let it rain
Wash everything clean

Kissed here hand, left her by his side
Our little girl now is to be his bride
The bond that’s formed cannot be untied
So let it rain

Let it rain
Sun shines down on me
Let it rain
Wash everything clean

My body’s frail and my mind is too
But it lights my soul to set eyes on you
Like the park years ago one more time hold my hand
Then let me slip away to the promised land

Posted on Leave a comment

Did it Again

I started this some time around Thanksgiving of 2009.  Finished it in February of 2010 so I could add it to my FAWM list.

When I first started this song, the only lyrics I had were “And we did it again”.  I didn’t mean anything by it, but my wife thought it was suggestive.  With that in mind, I wrote the first verse.  She thought that the lyrics made it a little less subtle.  🙂

So in February I finished it up with the second verse and did a quick recording.  Me on vocals and guitars.  I used Garageband to create the drum track.  I like this song enough that I’ll probably go back and re-record it at some point.  Might even add another verse or a bridge or something.

First public performance: the Miramar in Milwaukee, WI, on 23 March 2010.

©2010 Stephen G Brown

Update: 29 August 2010
I’m going to rewrite these lyrics.  Stay tuned.

Posted on Leave a comment

Let Go

I wrote this song on 14 March 2010.  Recorded the same day.  Me on vocals and piano.  First performed live on 23 March 2010 at the Mirimar Theater in Milwaukee, WI.

©2010 Stephen G Brown

All the times we’ve run away
Even when we should have stayed
Can’t face the music that we played last night

Honey I’ve been here and gone
We always play the same old song
I think I’m right, you think I’m wrong again

But I can’t lay it all on you
You know that I can be crazy
Temper’s hot and mood is blue
Let go

Come and sit beside me now
We can worth through this somehow
Let’s set it aside before the sun goes down

All the things we’ve done and said
All the tears that we have bled
Will wash away when we can let them go

But I can’t lay it all on you
You know that I can be crazy
Temper’s hot and mood is blue
Let go

Posted on Leave a comment

Welcome to Brownian Music

Welcome to my Music Blog.

I’ve been a musician all my life. I’ve written songs for much of my life. Many of them silly, many of the bad. But some of them, not so silly, not so bad. My problem has always been that I never finish the songs. I learned about FAWM (http://fawm.org) last fall, and decided to take the challenge – write 14 songs in the 28 days of February.

At first, I hoped to complete 14 new songs. But as things progressed, I realized that what I really wanted to was to finish songs I had already started. As things went, I wrote two new songs, and finished two previously started songs. That was just fine with me. Perhaps more importantly, it pointed me in the right direction. Couple weeks into March, I sat down at the piano and wrote a song beginning to end that afternoon. I’ve already performed that song at an open mic night.

So this blog is my effort to direct that momentum. I’m going to try to post songs here intermittently as I finish them. My goal is not to publish highly polished studio recordings, but demo recordings that give a good sense of the intended sound. Your feedback will always be appreciated.