It is poetic for me to be closing out the year with this song. A year of diving into unknowns, listening for whispers and following my desires.
I started writing this song in the fall of 2014. I was packing up my apartment and getting ready to move to LA. My dreams were on the precipice of coming true and I felt something else calling to me. Curiosity, temptation, self-sabotage? All of the above.
Scraps of lyrics lived in diaries for a couple years until I met Karen Perta. She’s a fellow voice geek I befriended at an Estill course. Back then we were living kind of mirror image professional lives; she’d pursued the science where I focused on the art. We were surprised by synchronicities we shared, finding our voice in unexpected places with interesting people. We traded stories and sketched this song together over brunch at Pamela’s diner.
It’s strange to think an entire decade has past since then, until I look at how our lives have changed. Karen is now a doctor and professor of speech and hearing science. We’ve seen each other through professional milestones and personal transformations; publishing books and papers, presenting at conferences around the world, learning instruments, career politics and devastating heartbreaks. I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been, to have a friend like her.
I played a stripped-back piano version over the summer at the Estill World Voice Symposium gala in Chicago. In my introduction there I said, “This song is about encountering something, or someone, that you know deep down is going to shift a paradigm in your life; and the fear in facing that revelation.” It’s amazing that this can still happen to me. Lately it feels like it’s happening every day.
A song with over a decade of personal history has an equally rich assortment of influences. NIN, Eminem, Evanescence, Miley Cyrus, Devin Townsend. I’m deep into a mixing frenzy right now and my ears are playing tricks on me, but I can still hear all of these in this production demo so I’m sharing it now to have a perfect year of monthly song blogs. That’s been my goal ever since I started this “solo project” in 2017 and this is the first year I’ve actually achieved it. Part of me feels exasperated; I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to work through my avoidant patterns about recording. But the larger part of me is proud. I feel like I’m finally coming into my own.
This song will be the first track on my EP, coming very, very soon. KM
The Siren
A voice speaks soft as a whisper
Then shivers its way down my neck
Alluring sound from a distance
In an instant it catches my breath
Never felt like this
How can you exist?
Do I follow my course?
Do I answer this call?
Or pretend I don’t hear it at all?
Under the cloak of the ocean so deep
There’s a siren who sings me to sleep
A misty face in the mirror
Getting clearer, I can’t look away
If I keep skimming the surface
Then the current can’t pull me astray
But it’s come to this
How can you exist?
Do I follow my course?
Do I answer your call?
Or pretend I don’t hear it at all?
Under the cloak of the ocean so deep
There’s a siren who sings me to sleep
You’re so close
And I’ve fallen so far
I’m exposed
Hypnotized by your charm
Here goes
Resounding a red alarm
Do I follow your course?
Do I answer your call?
Or pretend I don’t hear you at all?
Under the cloak of the ocean so deep
You’re the siren who sings me to sleep
And I can’t resist
How can you exist?