Tag: music

“Be As the Water” – Tiny Desk 2024.

Posted on by Allyson

My contest entry has been accepted 🙂 I wasn’t planning to enter this year, but I wrote this and felt it had the right energy this time, It’s a reminder to myself to be as present and open as I can be, while I can. I think it’s a message worth sharing. If you listen, thank you and I hope you enjoy. Poem below.

Be As the Water

No, the river rising won’t mind the flood.
Like arms of the ocean, to the sky every open.
Given good and bad, it fills up in love.
Any and all and more than enough.

What lessons? To accept this life gave what you need.
The good and bad equal the meaningful between.
So be as the water ever open to the sky.
Forget how you got here. Forget you asked why.
Why? Why? Why? No reason at all.

Tomorrow is yesterday, over and done.
To be is all purpose could ever want.
However you got here is with a goodbye,
Sure as the loss as each moment here dies.

So be as the water ever open to the sky.
Forget how you got here. Forget you ask why.
Why? Why? No reason at all.

Link to browse all the other cool contest entries this year: https://tinydeskcontest.npr.org/2024/browse-2024/

The Ending Must – New Album

Posted on by Allyson

Desperation to understand and the loss of hope is at the center of this album. Often there seems to be just inaction and unwillingness to risk a change when it comes to fixing problems in this world on top of very little will to fix what we can within ourselves (if we dare to see a problem at all). There may never be enough devastation or despair to move things along, but I hope to be wrong. I hope there’s an end one day that makes the difference.

Also available via most streaming platforms.

Every Single Moment Hurt – Original song

Posted on by Allyson

Recorded back in September.

Lyrics:

Haunted by the first. Give more blood than it’s worth.
A worried heartbeat set to burst,
And every single moment hurts.

Have mercy! Take the rest away.
Tomorrow need not know the shame.
How my days live for the night.
The ice to a carving knife.
And there’s no safer place.
This world I can’t take.

I know happier life died at my birth.
It’s this unspoken pain I serve.
All along, gathering nerve to breathe the flames.
You watch me burn.

As settled ashes, I’ll return.
The never here at all I’ve earned.
The unspoken pain I serve.
How every single moment hurt.

Every single moment hurt.
The never here at all…never here at all I’ve earned.

Exit Interview – Tiny Desk Contest 2023

Posted on by Allyson

My entry for 2023 contest. I wrote this after leaving my job of 5+ years last year. I think my music in general is too dark for what they’re looking for in a winner, but it’s fine. I really have no show to put on for them or anyone else at this point.


Lyrics :
Cutting losses, speak my bones.
If it’s my fault, you should have known.
But who ever sees me? Who is warm to the cold?
I’m here dying all alone.

Feel the thought tear from inside.
Having to lie and lie and lie.
I matter more kept in the dark.
Waste what remains of my heart,

Because who ever saw me?
Who was warm? Who was warm to the cold?
I was here dying all alone.
You never saw me. Never warm for the cold.
I was here dying all alone.

Burning bridge, you are a gift.
I hurt and want nothing more from the end.
Burning bridge, you are a gift.
I hurt and want nothing more from the end.

That Be the Day

Posted on by Allyson

As Black History month comes to a close, I’m sharing a song written during the BLM protests in 2020. When I think about my family history, I’m reminded how I can only trace back so far and how I’ll never know exactly where my ancestors came from, all those unanswerable questions. I often feel like a black speck in the milk, out of place and rootless trying to navigate this unwelcoming society. But mostly this song is a response to those who don’t want people who look like me here. Guitar & voice. Also on streaming services.