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a small good thing

by sam thorn

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about

written for adrianne lenker's school of song class (1000% recommended)

this week's assignment was to write something outside of our comfort zone - an alternate tuning, or an unfamiliar instrument, etc.; this is in dadf#be, capo 4, with a second capo on 11 fretting all of the strings except the lowest one.

i had trouble getting something finished for this week...had a few false starts and a few instances of trying out tunings that didn't quite work. a couple of days before the assignment was due we had a nasty storm. i was hanging out with my dog trying to calm him down, which gave me the first couple of lines of the song. next I sampled the dialogue at the beginning from our first lecture, which gave me a bit of the sound palette i was looking for. finally, the spiderweb section came from reflecting on our very first in-class assignment, which was a 20 minute speedwrite that adrianne did alongside us. i was kind of in awe of seeing her make magic out of thin air, which really is what music is to me. once that section came out the rest of the song came together more easily.

lyrics

my dog gets agitated when it rains
i tell him everything'll be okay
i tell him no-one’s gonna take my baby away

my friend says she can see the eschaton
i tell her no-one’s gonna bring my baby harm
no no-one’s gonna do my woman wrong
not as long as I got one good arm...

my sister, guess she caught her albatross
slit its throat and stuffed it
now it's hanging on her wall
and i know I’m supposed to be proud
but i don’t recognize her now

watch the little green devil at work
tricky little fucker always says the right words, got
myriad miracles stuck in your peripherals
patiently waiting their turn

my baby says she wants another kid
just as soon as we can provide for it
i tell her maybe someday
when the world ain’t such a terrifying place
i tell her maybe someday

watch the little white spiderweb spread
silk spilling out of your mouth like magic
it’s not a stay of execution, not a quick fix it’s
just a small good thing at a time like this

a small good thing at a time like this
a small good thing at a time like this
a small good thing at a time like this

credits

released February 2, 2024

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sam thorn Durham, North Carolina

end credits music for a world winding down

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