Lift High the Muse

I wrote a song. I didn’t get around to making a good recording yet, but here’s the rest of the information a person needs about a song:

Lyrics

day one, i thought, there’s too many people here
i tried to read your blogs but i could not make myself care
but one by one i met you and you started to be real
the words you write are insights into how your worlds feel

we’re all here for our own reasons and to post each day or die:
stories, frameworks, fever dreams, and hot takes on AI
in the café in the mornings over Leah’s best light roast
we’re learning to brew coffee and to be people who post

in the dark
in the rain
the faces change and stay the same
we praise the platform we don’t use
sit in circles round the flames
and lift high the muse
until she flies away

thought i knew what i was writing but i’ve changed my mind again
my best laid plans did not survive contact with rats and men
now your ideas are in my head and your style’s in my prose
you can’t change other people but you can edit their posts

in the dark
in the rain
our voices change and stay the same
we praise the platform we don’t use
sit in circles round the flames
and lift high the muse
until she flies away

we spill ourselves upon the page or else we hide ourselves away
we’re all learning what it means to live in public every day
we all dream of an audience, then fear it when it finds us
we learn to live within this dance that soon will be behind us

in the dark
in the rain
our problems change and stay the same
we praise the platform we don’t use
sit in circles round the flames
and lift high the muse
until she flies away

in the dark
in the rain
we all change and stay the same
we praise the platform we don’t use
sit in circles round the flames
and lift high the muse
until she flies away

---

Scrap

My process for songwriting is to generate a lot of lines until something works, so I wrote a lot of verse I liked that didn’t end up fitting the mood of the eventual song.

So, here are a bunch of bonus couplets of ballad meter poetry. This is not intended as a poem; the couplets are mostly unconnected.

We’re here for our own reasons and to post each day or die:
Stories, contra contra posts, and hot takes on AI.

We work at picnic tables, desks, or couches in the sun;
We stand and watch the endless scroll and dream of being done.

We put out work we’re proud of and we put out shit we hate—
Just post something, just write something, fuck, it’s getting late!

Every night near midnight, tension builds around the fire:
Fifteen posts in fifteen minutes, just under the wire.

The cast is ever-changing like the waves and clouds and flames;
They answer to their pseudonyms more often than their names.

We use real names or pseudonyms or sometimes half and half
But I don’t need to know your real name if I know what makes you laugh.

Everybody’s got a passion for a thing you’ve never heard;
We search our many languages to try to find the words.

A group of friends five thousand miles or ten minutes from home
Shoot creatine straight down our throats while voices talk of Rome.

Chords

Someone asked for the chords, so here they are. G is played as 3-2-0-0-3-3 throughout the song, and Em7 is x-2-2-0-3-3.

Intro/transition:
G | D-Dsus2-D | Em7-Em | C

Verses 1-3:
G | D    | Em | C
G | G    | F     | F
G | G    | Em | C
G | Em | C D | G

Chorus:
Em | G    | C    | D
G    | D    | Em | C
G    | Em | C D | G

Verse 4:
Em | G    | C    | D
G    | G    | C    | D
G    | G    | Em | C
G    | Em | C D | G