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Thu, Jun 26, 2025

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Music Notes

by Amethyst Angel 🌈

Rated: 13+ · Book · Music · #2313403

A blog about music from my unique perspective (also a spot for some poetry I’ve written)

A blog, generally about music, usually for projects hosted by Jeff

. I may also write about the 48-Hour Media Prompt Challenge if I don't feel like writing a story or poem inspired by the given song. Other bits of poetry or different topics of discussion might end up here as well.

This is the poem which earned my blog its green ribbon, courtesy Brian K Compton

"Renewal"

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Ẃeβ࿚Ẃỉtcĥ

about 23 hours ago
In response to "The Bard's Hall, June 2025, Entry 7"

How cool having a Raggedy Ann and And MB commissioned. I can't wait to see it.

Also, wonderful that you placed in the Shadows & Light contest.

I don't know how you keep up with all these writing activities and contests.

Fantastic!

1 Like

Ẃeβ࿚Ẃỉtcĥ

about 23 hours ago
In response to "The Bard's Hall, June 2025, Entry 6"

Radioactive was played on a loop in stores like Walmart, grocery stores, even Staples! It still pops in my head like a brain worm I can't shake.

However, I have a couple daughters living in CA who would always go to ID's concerts whenever they were in the area.

But yeah, music does attach to us in a way that's undeniable. I love background music when I'm doing stuff. It seems to make chores less "chorey."

. Writing with music playing, I believe, heightens the creative output.

1 Like

Ẃeβ࿚Ẃỉtcĥ

a day ago
In response to "Bard's Hall, June 2025, Entry 5"

Very cool and creative! I love the transparent handwriting layered over the selfie. Words, music and art are woven within your life--I see that clearly here.

1 Like

Ẃeβ࿚Ẃỉtcĥ

a day ago
In response to "The Bard's Hall, June 2025, Entry 4"

It was delightful learning how you were so focused on cover design, characters, even the dog! You are quite the planner. Yet you found a different path rather than continuing a novel. I think short stories can be fascinating. I call them lunch-break reads. They aren't too cumbersome to read in a short time. And, they don't pull you into wanting to read more than lunchtime allows.

One could lose their job if that happened. I know, I kid a bit. Books are great before bedtime. That's when I do my novel reading.

You do so many short stories here. I can see your passion for writing them.

Thank you for sharing that book, to cover, to short stories, experience. Music is a fantastic backdrop to writing. I do enjoy music.

1 Like

Kåre เลียม Enga

Jun 23, 2025 at 8:21pm
In response to "The Bard's Hall, June 2025, Entry 6"

My upbringing was impoverished in different ways. One thing we may have in common is that I was not allowed to swear. Not a bad thing... but when I learned how to swear it was like a damn broke (yes, damn not dam). These days, I don't swear much but when I let go...

Music does speak to me. Which may be why I prefer silence.

A song from my childhood... Handel's Largo from Xerxes:

1 Like

Kåre เลียม Enga

Jun 23, 2025 at 8:05pm
In response to "Bard's Hall, June 2025, Entry 5"

Never remove... let it sink into the sands (or mud or snirt).

Goes for writings as well as photos. You can thank me 50 years from now with laughter.

Yes, I understand Eeyore.

1 Like

StephBee

Jun 21, 2025 at 5:26pm
In response to "The Bard's Hall, June 2025, Entry 6"

It's amazing how a piece of music can really speak to our souls at a certain time in our lives. My song that follows me around is from Duran Duran. I've always loved Simon LeBon's word play. The song is "Lonely in Your Nightmare."

1 Like

StephBee

Jun 21, 2025 at 5:21pm
In response to "The Bard's Hall, June 2025, Entry 7"

Big Congrats on your poem scoring well in Shadows & Light. That's a good, competitive contest.

A WDC Will... might have to look into that...

A Raggedy Ann & Andy badge sounds cool.

1 Like

Amethyst Angel 🌈

Jun 21, 2025 at 12:46pm
In response to "The Bard's Hall, June 2025, Entry 7"

Humming Bird

I never will, Inshallah, but I always think about it because I’ve seen several people who were well loved here simply disappear, taking their beautiful things with them. I don’t want that to happen with me

Don’t forget to write a review at the bottom of the page, to qualify for I Write

Humming Bird

Jun 21, 2025 at 12:42pm
In response to "The Bard's Hall, June 2025, Entry 7"

Hopefully you will not close your account.

1 Like

June 24, 2025 at 2:31pm

#1092154

The Bard's Hall, June 2025, Entry 8

Ẃeβ࿚Ẃỉtcĥ

StephBee

"The Bard's Hall Contest"

When I posted "Note: Maybe I'll tell the story behind this *^*Th..." I hinted someday I would share the story behind my mysterious handwritten quote. I suppose now is as good a time as any.

It starts in 2019, when I started working at a quasi-Christian charity workshop sort of place. At first it seemed like a dream job for me: walk in, sit down, do my work and leave with money earned. Human interaction was minimal. The boss played Christian music. I was happy.

Then came the pandemic. Everything changed for the worse that year. The place shut down for a month, leaving me without an income. When it reopened, it was a different atmosphere: the boss grew toxic, manipulative, untrustworthy. He blasted creepy secular music. I worked longer hours for lower pay.

My brain gradually started to melt under the pressure. I got so caught up in working, it left no room for anything else. I'd be so exhausted by the time I got off work, I'd black out in bed for a couple hours. My creative side shriveled up. I stopped listening to my own music, instead obsessing over trying to get the boss to play what I wanted to hear at work, without telling him how stressful the whole situation was or what I really needed out of the job.

I stopped journaling. My Google Photos account was filled with dreary work charts and weird screenshots of the obscure Twitter-verse I spent most of my spare time hanging out in. It got to the point where I couldn't cobble together two coherent sentences in a letter to a pen pal.

Finally, in March 2021, I quit. I spent the next eighteen months or so rediscovering myself alongside OneRepublic and Imagine Dragons, who both awakened from their pandemic slumber to release new music in the springtime and ultimately new albums by summer's end.

Cutthroat was the B-side of ID’s double single they dropped that March, Follow You being the A-side. Two more vividly contrasted songs would be hard to find. At the time, ID employed a metaphor which I've used often since then in my journal, as a music analysis tool. One eye open, one eye closed. Inward facing, outward facing. A cute song about love and loyalty to another, and an edgy song about conquering your own flaws.

Having been separated from my music and journaling for so long, I was deeply fascinated by Cutthroat and its harsh, startling message. Yes, that's where I got my subtitle for "White Iris"

and "Virus"

from: “only one of us will make it out alive, and it's not you.” My friend Jack accused me of getting the catchphrase from Fallout 4, one of his favorite video games. I'm not a gamer, however.

At first glance, and indeed to most people, the theme of Cutthroat seems to be about getting ahead at the expense of everyone else. It sounds like the narrator is fighting with the world. Lead singer and songwriter Dan Reynolds has explained that he's actually fighting with himself, a concept I can relate to and root for. While analyzing it in my journal, I noted gloomily that if I killed off all the parts of myself I didn't like, I wasn't sure there would be anything left of me.

Yet, the language he uses triggers my oversensitive, overactive imagination in other, darker ways, to the point where I couldn't bear to hear him shout “get on the knee!” at the bridge of the studio version. Cutthroat is a noisy, ugly, unnerving song, one that can only be appreciated if one knows exactly who made it, why and how. I've never quoted or spoken of it on WdC, and in fact have not listened to it in years. Admittedly, though, it is perhaps the one song that sent my brain down the worldbuilding path that ultimately led me here.

During the summer of 2021, I turned it over and around in my head, trying to break it down musically into its different elements. It was my first taste of the Dragons working with famous producer Rick Rubin on their upcoming Mercury double album, and the production style was nothing like what they usually did. I puzzled over the instrumental, even looking for karaoke versions or string covers to listen to without the words. Something about the music didn't make sense, somehow. It reminded me a little bit of Queen's Another One Bites the Dust.

It gave me something to write about, anyway, and write I did. Slowly that year I gathered the scattered bits of my brain back together, utilizing the new music coming from my favorite artists to relax, relate, create artwork, write, analyze, and mark time, rebuilding my personal culture which had shriveled up with the stress of my old work environment.

One verse in particular haunted me as I struggled to put the previous year of my life in perspective and move on…

This ominous, yet hopeful thought seemed especially applicable to the time I ultimately wasted at that dead-end, downspiraling job. During a month of total lockdown in April 2020, I re-learned cursive handwriting and did myself a lasting service. It was an excellent way to handle being abruptly disconnected from society and watching the world crumble from afar.

After I scribbled out this thought a year later on paper, I used the picture as my Twitter profile banner. It stayed there for several years, a unique declaration of… something. Not sure what

Cutthroat, Follow You and OneRepublic's Run all came out at the exact moment I needed them. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the double single from ID dropped the same day I quit my job. This motley trio became the theme music of my life for a few months, gradually moving aside to make room for the albums they led into, which released a week apart in August and September of 2021.

The music video for studio Cutthroat shows the story of a woman attempting to get her driver's license—a comic relief from and exploration of the song's weirdness.

I was quite pleased when ID released what I call a “rebuilt” version of the song, using real, visible instruments, including a kazoo. They chose to drop the phrase “get on the knee” at the bridge, so this is the version I have downloaded on my old phone I use as an iPod. A bit easier to listen to.

I'll include Follow You and Run down here, as well as the lyrics to Cutthroat so you know what you're getting into if you care to listen.

This is a story I've wanted to share for a while. Glad to have the opportunity to do so now

Words: 1,130.

lyrics to Cutthroat ▼

Cutthroat music video ▼

Cutthroat rebuilt version ▼

Follow You official lyrics video ▼

Run, by OneRepublic ▼

Join "WDC Dragon Vale "

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