Intimate, intricate, introspective lyrics suffused with a quirky eroticism.

7 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Modern Folk, HIP HOP/RAP: White-Boy Rap



Details:
NOTE: The "low fidelity" sound clips for dial-up users don't
capture the vocals properly on the following songs: "cross bronx
acid trip," "the hill," and "the armadillo sleeps tonight." They
work reasonably well on the other songs.

The five songs that make up the real "Twisted Pear" song cycle had
their beginnings in the late '60s or early '70s. "Snow Prince,"
"The Hill" and "The Armadillo Sleeps Tonight" started out as poems;
"Sometimes I Wish I Was a Paramecium" and "Pink Velvet" were songs
from the beginning.

I wrote "Inflatable Woman" in the '90s. I got the word "nouminal"
from some explanatory text in a book called "Prolegomena." I don't
claim to have understood much of it.

I started on "cross bronx acid trip" in the spring of 2001. My
nephew made a home recording of some guitar improvisations and
wanted me to come up with some lyrics. His music had a "driving
fast in lots of traffic" sound, which led me to the concept of
driving on the cross bronx expressway (which I've done once) while
high on LSD (which I did a total of five times many years ago).
I've never done both together. (And I hope none of my listeners are
stupid enough to actually try that sort of thing!) Anyway, the idea
allowed me to come up with all kinds of wild and crazy imagery, so
it was a fun thing to write. By the way, this is the "White Boy
Hip-Hop" piece. Like Hip-Hop, it consists of lyrics chanted over a
rythmic background. And I'm white, so . . . Hey, I couldn't think
of any other category to put it in. "Death Metal" seemed too
pretentious. Another thing. As work on the song progressed, the
original background didn't fit any more, so what you hear on the CD
is different.

Some of the phrases in the songs are meaningful, some are just
exuberant nonsense. I could give hints about the songs, beyond
their obviously somewhat quirky eroticism, but that would spoil
half of the fun. I just hope that maybe some of the young geeks of
today will find a bit of humor and meaning in these lyrics produced
by the slightly deformed soul of a young geek of yesterday.

OK, one hint. The title phrase "Twisted Pear" is intended to
suggest a mathematical object known as a Klein Bottle.