Song picture
As Beautiful as Dawn
Comment Share
A song I created in my teens from musical fragments, recreated from scratch -- different, but similar
experimental psychedelic
Artist picture
pop, classic rock, old pop, beatles
In my teens, I wrote songs like a madman. In one year, when I was 16, I produced 11 albums worth of material. During the 6 year period between my 16th and 21st year, I produced approximately 700 songs. I have a hard time believing that figure myself, but at one point in my early twenties I counted them up and it came out to something slightly in excess of that figure. Since I've long since lost all the recordings and most of the written documentation, I can't go back and check the figures any longer. Now, admittedly, much of the material was truly, utterly terrible! It had to be; I started writing with a guitar in hand before I knew how to play chords! In fact, the first four albums were all noise, some of it very interesting noise -- at least we thought so. I say WE because I wasn't working alone; my best friend Steve MacKay was my partner in musical mayhem. Our band was called Garbage and that pretty much says it all. In fact, we knew we were horrible and reveled in the fact. Our attitude towards our music was interesting. We thought we were geniuses, but we also were scornful. The attitude was similar to how we felt about movies. We loved cheese. Japanese horror movies, Charlie Chan flicks -- anything horrible, we loved. As to our recordings, I knew every nuance of sound on those early tapes intimately well, because I listened to them endlessly. The first track we recorded was called Toilet Symphony. It had three principal parts. The first involved these soaring electronic sound effects we had recorded at The Ontario Science Centre; the second part involved sounds and music speeded up four or five times, so that it sounded like the flickering tinkling of a wind chime. The final portion was a native choral group chanting. You can see why that track -and indeed most of those tracks - are not now in existence.
Song Info
Charts
#1,555 today Peak #121
#172 in subgenre Peak #5
Author
W Cameron Bastedo
Rights
W. Cameron Bastedo
Uploaded
May 08, 2023
Track Files
MP3
MP3 3.2 MB 320 kbps 1:23
Lossless
WAV 28.0 MB
Story behind the song
In Marvel's version of Robert Howard's 'Conan the Barbarian' there was this scene where the Frost Giant's daughter forgotten her name taunts him, saying 'Am I not beautiful, O man?' And he says, “As beautiful as dawn running naked on the snow...” The phrase caught my imagination, that's where the lyrics came from, that and a reversal suggested by Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon'. The music was created from fragments of sound recorded at the Ontario Science Centre which, I hear, is being torn down very sad! In any case, the fragments were on cassette and transferred to reel-to-reel and tracked with guitar and voice. In my memory it was close to this. The tune is the same, and the strange floating notes with hiss and interference mingled together and made this odd enchanting background. I've done my best here, but the result will never be quite the same. Yet, I'm fairly confident that if I heard them back-to-back (not possible now) I would think this a much better version. It just doesn't have the infusion of the mythological.
Lyrics
Just as beautiful as dawn, Running naked on the snow, Well, I'm waiting on the wind to change, To show which way to go. And if by chance the sun sinks, To never rise again, Well, I'm waiting on the dawn, Because the dawn will come again. My friend
Comments
Please sign up or log in to post a comment.