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about

This song's story is difficult to explain.

Earth Over Air is the impossible story of my experience waking up from a vivid dream with the words "Earth over air" being spoken repeatedly, getting out of bed to write down the dream in my living room, and with pen in hand discovering a half-dead bird under my couch.

I spoke gently to her -- this bird -- and carried her outside to lay her in the garden on some flattened dandelions. She died later there that morning. It was a strange day.

The following are some lines from my notebook that morning, many of which got recycled into the lyrics:

birds falling from the sky
the bird (dandelion I'm calling her)
is dead. pulled a few weeds out
and dug a hole in the garden
with a broken handle hoe.
it was a quick, quiet ceremony
and ended with me filling the hole
back up with dirt. laid a few stones
and pushed some broken dishes into the dirt
to mark how unnatural it was that she died.
the spider ants were already eating
out her eyes. she was pretty
even while she was dead
pretty even when she's dead
but can she ever feel the thrill of flying again?

Earth Over Air features the title line "birds falling from the sky." This line appears in three other songs on this album and it was a theme I was trying to weave and re-weave throughout the record with various words and sounds. I thought it was a good first song and in a way serves as an opening "bookend" on the album (the closing bookend being Up in the Sky and Please Don't Leave Us).

The song is set in C minor / Eb Major with some interesting chromatic changes listed as best as I could manage in the lyrics section. I was experimenting with holding long notes in the melody against chromatic changes in the harmony. In this way Earth Over Air harmonically resembles The Stars Are All Out.

While we were recording Birds Falling From The Sky I changed my phone's voicemail greeting to invite people to share personal bird stories rather than leaving me a normal message. My friend Dave left an interesting message on my voicemail. I ended up cutting up the voicemail and using samples of it in the recording of the song. He was describing his experience watching swifts fly into a big industrial chimney somewhere in Portland, Oregon.

lyrics

Cm - Eb - AbM - Abm
Don't know why I don't know how
She was on the carpet next to the couch
I talk to her cause I could see she's scared
But I don't know how you got in there

Bb - Ab
Man I don't know why birds be
Falling from the sky
Gm - Bb
But I understand it to mean
Ab - Abdim - Cm
Sometimes the world's a little
Like a Picasso painting

Dandelion (I'm calling her)
And I go outside and sit in the dirt
It was quick some words were said
She's pretty even when she's dead
Dig a hole with a busted-handle hoe
And bury the burden and lay some stones

Gm - Bb - Ab - Abdim - Cm
To put a bird down in the dirt instead
Of feeling the thrill of flying again
Ab - Abdim ||: Cm - B - Eb :||
Instead of feeling the trill of flying again

Eb - Cm - Ab - Bb
I still don't know how you got in there
I'll pour a little earth down over some air
Gm - Bb - Gm - Bb
The words are stuck inside my head
She's pretty even when she's dead
Eb - Cm - Ab - B
I still don't know how you got in there
I'll pour a little earth down over some air
Gm - Bb - Gm - Bb
The flies are eating out her eyes
But dandelion's still flying
||: Cm - B - Eb :||
Dandelion's still flying

credits

from Birds Falling from the Sky, released July 21, 2021

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Harmonica Pocket Port Townsend, Washington

Acoustic & chill, The Harmonica Pocket will win you over with laid-back originals and playful re-workings of songs you love.

Recorded on a tiny island in the Pacific Northwest using solar electricity, their albums feature ukuleles and guitars strummed over tight vocal harmonies and delicate fingerplucked melodies. Horn sections swell and tiny musical secrets are woven into the corners of the mix. ... more

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