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Say Hello EP (fdm138)

by Chris Anderson

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1.
Say Hello 06:53
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she took a holiday to find another way i watched her sail away to see it all, she said to dream it all before i'm dead to leave it all astray she made her peace and fled the apparitions in her head too much to hold her down she never knew how far she'd go before she hit the stars and stopped to look around she lit out on the run to chase her shadow to the sun that burns so brighter than the next thing on the list it's nothing but she can't resist the reins are in her hands she sings a made-up song and wanders in her mind along the halls and alleyways for a moment, everywhere is home she's always there under the foam but she won't be there to stay take a random point in your memory take an open space in your heart take another break from your fantasy, child and say hello she set the fire there and moved long, so unaware of all she left behind or was it just a thought behind the curtain, overwrought like all thoose other signs somewhere, her voice it sings for a moment, she is everything her world has ever known until the break of day to shake it loose and drift away through paradise alone take a random point in your memory take an open space in your heart take another break from your fantasy, child and say hello just like a passing fit she wallows in the face of it and goes another round behind the garden wall in camouflage, before the ball she barely makes a sound the sum of all the world in her she has no time to register the love she feels inside she'd never hide away she lives tomorrow yesterday and that's all i gotta say take another point in your memories take an open space in your heart take another break from your fantasy, child and say hello -4/11/15 (based on an unfinished song from 1993)
2.
Undertow 06:40
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this time has come the grey skies have grown too dreary while my grey eyes grow so weary how can i live with this anymore? too pushed to be known this silent barrage, truth offensive too tough to be so defensive but to look into the eyes of the weak and the old to be sold in the undertow the lamb lit the sky it was a wonderful sight and the party, interrupted by her inference the hero took the villain to innumerable heights in the summer night too new to be scene in his forever defunct revolution this bankrupt devolution and evolve to conditions of mercy and the old ways to be sold away in the undertow and the children cry with their wounds as the scars with which we grow not just humility we hide say we don't know and this, the last of which we read but not follow so we continue to be sold away in the wake of the undertow the lamb lit the sky it was a wonderful sight and the party, interrupted by her inference the hero took the villain to a new world height in the summer light how can i stand the absurdness of this, the aggressor? their sublime is their only progressor stopped dead in the tracks of the undertow if you can sign me away sign me away as a martyr sign me away as a child just don't sign me away for your greed and your grief, and your gold sell-out to the undertow the lamb lit the sky it was a wonderful sight and the party, interrupted by her inference the hero took the villain to innumerable heights in the summer night the lamb lit the sky it was a wonderful sight and the party, interrupted by her inference the hero took the villain to a new world height in the summer light -June 1993
3.
(No Room On) Grayson Street 06:37
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there she goes down to meet her god alone, she takes him on it's all done whatcha gonna do alone? chains on her arms for she crimson and gold i close my eyes and i whistle sweetly broken down, ramshackled and i whistle sweetly and i'd like to say how did we come to this dam? bang, bang, bang, bang chitty chitty alone - whatcha gonna do alone? odds are she's going down she burned me and whistled sweetly knocked out, left for dead and whistled sweetly and i'd like to stay why must she stay alone? and you whistle sweetly alone - whatcha gonna do alone? black coffee, getting up like new morning can you whistle sweetly? and i rub my eyes and say "take me down" well, it seemed so easy could you just whistle sweetly" alone - whatcha gonna do alone? -October 1994
4.
The Greenwich Affair 04:15
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the cold, cracked lines of her face grew in this pale room where i lie now she only gave hindsight though it was not her own but rather torn from the front page in bold, dark capitals screaming, in words as if it meant to catch me she know it couldn't have i never really cared for that sort of thing but she continued on and on so i had no choice but to listen it's a shame i didn't hear her eyes, a flood, like mine are now but i never cried i was too into myself vain, just like everyone else lost in my own eyes and bouncing around the room like some schoolchild which i was as she rambled, her words hurt my head and they were tucked away until it was too late -September 1994

about

In the waning days of spring 1993, I found myself working on a mysterious project that could have become my third album. The focus of that record was a long, five-part song cycle, while it was rounded out by two standalone originals, which sounded quite different. So, as I scratched my head, trying to figure out how to approach this, those two songs were excised from the running, with the intent of releasing them as a single.

The song cycle proved to be too lofty and it was shelved before release (it was restored and released in 2019) and I soon moved on to sessions for the album that became Dreamora. The "say hello" single had gained legendary status among my inner circle and eventually I decided to release it, though it wasn't until the fall of 1994 when this happened. The a-side of the single, "Say Hello", was a recording that I was most proud of, probably the best-produced FDM recording, up to that point. The only problem? The song had no lyrics aside from the chorus. I had a vague idea of what I was going for but every attempt to flesh it out made it sound corny. That didn't matter. The single came out anyway.

The main b-side from the single is a song that I wrote with my Carpe Diem bandmate, Jon Weinhagen. This version has always been my favorite though the band would go on to play this song for its entire duration, and we would blow roofs off with this song.

The third track on the original single was this weird, Stone Roses-inspired, back-masked number, with this sort of obtuse lyric, based around whatever my backwards voice was singing. The song was titled "(No Room On) Grayson Street" and while I have fuzzy memories of actually recording this, I do not recall anything regarding the writing or the title. Those things happen, especially in those crazy days.

The original single was released on a 60-min cassette, and there was a lot of blank space to fill. So I grabbed a bunch of outtakes and other weird bits from the vault and filled out the tape with an EP called The Ill And The Ugly. In 2002, when the "say hello" single was released on CD, a version of "The Yammering Song" was extracted from that EP and added as a bonus fourth track.

Over the years, I continued to try and write lyrics for "Say Hello" and even went so far as to nick the chorus for a 2003 song called "Little Blind Robin" (the song lives on, but no longer with that section). However, in 2015, it finally came to me, and the lyric pretty much wrote itself, almost instantly. As if it was already there, but just took 22 years for it to come into form. Once that happened, I recorded an acoustic demo of the song, and then went on to record new acoustic takes of both of the original b-sides, vastly rearranging "(No Room On) Grayson Street" in order to fit the acoustic format. In keeping with the bonus track theme, a version of "Fragile Bones", which was based upon a then-newly-discovered song sketch that had been completely forgotten about. This version of the EP was released on the BG label, and can be found on its Bandcamp site.

Which brings us to now. None of these songs had been tackled in the modern era of FDM so it has been pretty much a given that the single would be re-recorded once more. It wasn't until the fall of 2020, when I was working on the Soul Reflection album, that this finally came to pass. Initially, "Say Hello" and "Undertow" were to appear on that album, and this was to be a related release. In the end, the album turned out to be quite long, and I preferred the idea of these songs being exclusive to this EP, so I pulled them from the album (literally two days before the album was released) and brought them home to this EP. Another vastly different version of "(No Room On) Grayson Street" was cut in January 2022 and, in keeping with the bonus track theme, this EP is rounded out by a song called "The Greenwich Affair" which was a lyric that was written in a college creative writing class, around the same time that the original EP was being assembled. Music for this did not materialize until summer 2020, when it was worked up as part of The Memo Project. A bit of a strange one, this is still the most fitting of the three "fourth tracks".

While this is the most realized version of this single that exists, I still consider the original, with all of its errors, flaws, and omissions, to be the definitive "say hello" single, but this is still pretty awesome and I am happy to bring it to life once more. If I ever get a band again, there is a good chance that this will be recorded a fourth time. Until then, dig on the three versions of this EP that already exist.

-CA, 2/2/22

credits

released February 2, 2022

"produced" by Chris Anderson
Recorded and mixed in The Room
Fall 2020 (tracks 1 & 2)
January 2022 (tracks 3 & 4)

CA: acoustic & electric guitars, bass, mandolin, drum programming, percussion, vocals, other shit.


All songs written by Chris Anderson
(c) CA / Flying Dachshund Music (BMI)

except:
"Undertow" - written by Chris Anderson & Jon Weinhagen
(c) CA / JW / Flying Dachshund Music (BMI)



Special thanks to the original "Say Hello" single.


(p)(c) 2021 Chris Anderson / Flying Dachshund Music. All rights reserved. Violators will say hello to my little friend.

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Chris Anderson Alexandria, Virginia

Chris is a wildly prolific songwriter who has hovered among the outskirts of the music world for over 30 years. On his own label, Flying Dachshund Music, Chris has released 154 CDs, 96 of them being full-length albums. That's just the tip of the iceberg and there are no signs of stopping. Ever.

chrisanderson-earlyfdm.bandcamp.com/music

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