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By Ourselves

by Nathan Eliot

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1.
Time is essential to the conversation Space is provided for a phrase or pause Matter is inevitable creation Energy screaming at the speed of cause Life: what a symphony of sights I’m caught in the middle Love: what a reckoning or rights I’m lost in the riddle Math is created, or is it discovered? Language, a training tool or tool of trade? Counting each one of us a prime example Marching for undivided numbered days Life: what a symphony of sights I’m caught in the middle Love: what a reckoning or rights I’m lost in the riddle
2.
To delight the mind And excite the heart We will throw our pan Right into the art We're sorry for nothing We can't finish if we don't begin We’re sorry for nothing We can't help it if we favor kin If we savor sin To express the self And impress on you We will bring our past Into present view We’re sorry for nothing We can't stand for what has been again We’re sorry for nothing We thrive when our enemies are friends Survive when our enemies are friends We will use our voices And make no sound To communicate Nothing too profound
3.
What is the difference between magic and math? Both take me on an adventurous abstract path What is the sum when you add magic to math? Both make possible only what we can imagine. If the mystery is in my head, I will manage If the history is in the past, our advantage Every feeling in its proper proportion What is the difference between magic and math? Both take me on an adventurous abstract path What is the sum when you add magic to math? Both make possible only what we can imagine. If the proof exists forever, is there no canvas? If the truth persists inevitably, we’re blessed. Every feeling in it’s proper proportion... What is the difference? What is the sum? What is the product? What is the quotient? Time is subtracted and relative Spaces equal in each place Matter multiplies before our eyes Energies divide with grace What is the difference between magic and math?
4.
What if I die? What if I die? Would I feel, would I know Would I fly, would I fall? How will I tell the time when I don't turn on? Could I turn this consciousness back to purest possibility? With no measure of success Worse or better, no conditioning We come from nothing Return to nothing We inherit the presupposition that we've received Nature's preferential treatment We seem to be the pinnacle of what can know, as far as we can know We come from nothing We turn to something What if I live? What if I live? Would I hurt, would I heal? Would I smile, would I keel over? How would I count on time when it's not quite real? Could I turn this consciousness back to purest possibility? With no memory or stress Curse or blessing, vital mystery We come from nothing How come we're something? If we come from nothing How come we’re something?
5.
Clockwork 03:39
Just like clockwork, bound to a sun Though we don’t agree on the rhythm of our revolutions It is fitting or so profound that direction be paramount To collision-free way round? Once a cyclone of dust and gas Spun from star-guts expelling trash Like a phoenix, rise from ash. If the stars could surely remain Bright and distant, fixed in a frame God will deal in gravity’s game Smooth our reeling worries away Just make clocks work, everyday job But the heart’s work is learning laws Deeper than we’ve grown to see Fitting four dimensions of space Into three we everyday face Truth shrugs absolutes with grace Once a carriage of human mind Would assume the constant of light To derive a new spacetime In a marriage of space and time Mass and energies intertwined Vows are sound in longer lines Leading to grander designs
6.
Sound 04:42
Open up to your sound Listen up to your sound Break the glass with you sound Cause then’s just memory Is this all here, happening now? Now cannot be if there ever was then How can every intricacy listen? Now cannot be if we see what’s coming, hear what’s drumming Everything’s been moving with no mission Bring it down with your sound Let it out with your sound Luxury of your sound Open yourself to now, cause future is to come You’re anxious for the winter after Nostalgic for the summer before Still cozy in the changing autumn We only know to take for granted spring Is this all here, happening now? Turn it round with your sound Lost and found with your sound Three to count with your sound Turn a smile to me now, cause future is to come Do we pursue the everlasting? Imprisoned in the place we dream and wake Record each thought, mundane or grandiose We only know to occupy our space Open up to your sound Listen up to your sound Break the glass with you sound Cause then’s just memory
7.
I cannot help but derive more meaning I cannot help but desire more feeling I can I can I can Just because I can, I would I should I stand I crawl I scrawl my plan
8.
Far be it for me to comment on your disposition Starving to escape this gazing male, an ape condition So you spell a pungent poem Charm me with your mind’s aroma Just to throw your thoughts over your shoulder Crumpled, ink-scored paper I know you know what I’m drinking You think you think about thinking We see no negative to excess information Still seek some salience through modal iteration We speak as aliens of model conversation Far be it for me to analyze your telling fiction Marveling, if none the wiser, prime pitfalls of diction So you speak in awkward prose Unleash your words from formal woes Just to season reasoning With tone, inflection, cadence, subject I know you know what I’m drinking You think you think about thinking We see no negative to excess information Still seek some salience through modal iteration We speak as aliens of model conversation
9.
Seeking sublime Beyond the finite Fearful delight Testing insight with complementary sound symmetry compelling me Also known as harmony We would thank Pythagoras for thee If it weren’t so obvious To see that the ratios correlate Gut string hung from beams with measured weight We would thank Pythagoras If it weren’t so obvious If the ratios correlate Never more to contemplate Reaching respite Before the infinite Faithful resist Blessings persist with complementary chord chemistry compelling me
10.
We think a fire will suffice us for tonight We drink, inspired by the memory of light We know the water is fuel for us all But wine will warm us from faces to our toes. Time is movement What compels this Forward progress Manifest us Time is movement Chance collapses Probability to action We think a choir will support us for today We sing, inspired with no echoes in our wake We know the harmony's fuel for the soul But with no rhythm we have nowhere to go Time is movement What compels this Forward progress Manifest us Time is movement Choice collapses Possibility to action Just like clockwork Sprung from a sun Shifting gears with each one's own heart rhythm We dare to triumph inside our little minds We swear in silence and can't believe our eyes We hold these pains to be self-evidently sacred And undeniable pathways to our peace
11.
All we are is a memory of a ratio All we are is a fading of four to three All we are is an asymmetry in nature All we are is a complementarity Sound in harmony
12.
By ourselves we split the world in parts By our nature, argument or art By ourselves we privatize our pain By our lonesome, stigmatize our shame We're incredible odds We contrive all our gods What compels us to cope? What reminds us to hope? By our cells we harvested the light Learn to swim, breathe, speak and seek insight By our song, time, love and memory Find the fountain, stave off entropy By ourselves we argue over toys By ourselves distinguish girls from boys By ourselves we postulate for primes By ourselves, subservient to the rhymes
13.
Everything in one place Time beget all things most probable Fly swim or crawl Once we intuit time, love and memory Face the infinite, headstrong and free
14.
Life, what a symphony of sights I'm caught in the middle Love, what a reckoning of rights I'm lost in the riddle Guided by our nature To create and be creative To assume and apply To pursue and provide To examine and excite Guided by our agents To parade and be pervasive To confuse and comply To refuse and reply To entangle and entice Life, Love: Just two words and just two parts apart from one (One) life for love, greeting faces, meeting spaces heating up
15.
Can I 03:43
I cannot help but derive more meaning I cannot help but desire more feeling I can, I can, I can Just because I can I would, I should, I stand I crawl I scrawl my plan I cannot read you from left to right I cannot speak of your breathless sight Can I share a dance with you? Don't know the steps but I got moves I got moves Would you stay ‘til you become old news? Don't know a thing 'bout souls But yours somehow heals, When you're there I repair I cannot help but delight your being I cannot help but design my dreaming
16.
Take my hand You are strong enough Grip my finger in your palm You are safe enough Walk into wonder Wail into wonder Wake into wonder Hear my voice You are brave enough Drifting in and out of sleep You belong here with us Hear my voice You are wise enough Use my chest as your bed for now Fade into wonder Dive into wonder Wade into wonder

about

Nathan Eliot never quite mastered the art of sitting still. Sessions for this album required him to do exactly that for extended periods of time.

credits

released July 28, 2019

Each of the 15 tracks were composed for piano and voice between the summer of 2014 and the winter of 2016, then recorded live over two days with three mics by the one and only Joseph Barker (co-founder of Bella Ruse and Musicologie) in February 2017.

All songs written by Nathan Eliot (ASCAP).
Published by Space Acorn Media (ASCAP).

Album art: Betty Rowan
Album design: Molly OC Rowan

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Nathan Eliot Minneapolis, Minnesota

After collaborating on the Minneapolis music scene for more than 15 years, Nathan Eliot is proud to release his second solo album, By Ourselves, a piano meditation on time, on July 28, 2019.

His debut album, Universe in Me (2014), transformed "familiar folk instruments into celestial sound machines, as mandola mingles with synth and bells." (The Current blog)
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