Music Downloads Archive
On The Fade
Words: 07-11-1992
Music: 07-11-1992
What’s It All About?
So the early nineties were a time of letting go and transition and new beginnings for me — and while I was seven months into what would be a nine year relationship, there was still a sense of sadness and mourning in me. Even if you’re putting things behind you that, well, sucked, it can still be traumatic.
Combine that with the fact that grunge was in full swing. I had just discovered a band called Rein Sanction — in particular their album “Mariposa,” which combined the grunge, lo-fi feel with a wall of feedback-drenched guitars that would make Crazy Horse take notice. Melancholy rock and roll meets melancholy rock and roller… and “On the Fade” was born.
It was a standard for PIGBAT (the second version included here), but I also recorded a semi-acoustic version for my six-song mini-album, “Hundred Seller.” On that version, I invited PIGBAT’s guitarist, Kris Shine, to apply his trademark reverb and feedback guitar stylings. We set up my cassette four-track recorder and his amps after hours in the used record store where I worked and I let Kris go to town.
That version — the first of the two included here — is, to my mind, the definitive one. I hear it, and I see Kris, rocking out and smiling. And I miss him.
Lyrics:
When the winter comes and you finally settle down
By the riverside and your soul plants roots deep in the ground
Take some time and let the world go on its way for you
Feel more and more like your yesterday shines brighter than
Today
Every friend’s a stranger anyway
And it’s strange
How the circle tightens on the fade
Gotta close the ring
Scope in on the range
And allow some players
To one day leave the stage
In your memory the shadows pull apart
While the fog pulls closer in its clutch around your heart
How you want to see a light pierce through the gray
But you feel more and more like solitude’s the order of the
Day
You can’t trust yourself to love anyway
And it’s pain
That brings the noose tighter as it fades
From view everyone
Drifts just out of range
Strip back on the shroud
Face up to this change
And allow some players
To one day leave the stage
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The media files on this page are provided for your enjoyment — you can listen, and even download the MP3 files, and not pay a dime. I encourage you to share them with friends, provided no one changes or sells the files, and that you attribute them to me.
I do hope you’ll consider contributing an amount proportional to how much you like these songs. When you pay for music on this site, you declare yourself to be a patron of independent creative endeavors… and my supporter. That means a great deal, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Recommended price: $1.00
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On the Fade by Matthew Wayne Selznick (version) [4:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (279) On the Fade by PIGBAT with Matthew Wayne Selznick [3:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (271)Me and Hill Watching You
Words: 03-31-1990
Music: 03-31-1990
What’s It All About?
I went on a camping trip to the mountains outside of Tucson, Arizona with three other people. We drove out there in two cars, all the way from South Orange County in California. I was in the car with my best friend, and though we had the kind of friendship that made a long road trip possible, things between us were… complicated.
During that camping trip, I climbed to the top of a rock formation that resembled, to me at least, the shell of a turtle. I basked in the sun and lost myself to the elements and kind of tranced out for a while. And I looked down at our campsite, and saw my friend, lost in her own meditative state.
While my feelings for her had been strong for months, I knew that day I would love her the rest of my life. We’ve built our own lives with other partners in the fifteen years since that trip and I celebrate her happiness, but she’s still one of the very small handful of people who have permanent lodgings in the house of my heart.
The song was originally written on bass guitar. My band at the time, psychopathway, played it live a time or two, but to my knowledge there are no recordings of that version. The version presented here was recorded on acoustic guitar direct to hard drive with no overdubs in my office in Hesperia, California in 2002.
Lyrics:
I can’t rest until I get this out
Finally happiness what it’s all about
I wonder how you’d take these words tonight
Hard to tell if I’m really surprised
Thinking it was all a matter of time
I wonder do you think of me at night?
So long now you’ve been around
But it took so long now to know you
Far away you seemed so small
But for the sun you were all I saw
Me and hill we
Sat and watched you
I was dreaming as he talked
You didn’t know as my white light loved you
That’s something I’ll never stop
All along I
Had a feeling
Upon it I could never lock
Now I know the reason for it
You and I are of one heart
Do you think like me of that one kiss?
Can’t ignore the promise here in this
When will you admit to us it’s all right?
I wonder how you’d take these words tonight?
I wonder do you think of me at night?
You and I are of one heart
Support Independent Music
The media files on this page are provided for your enjoyment — you can listen, and even download the MP3 files, and not pay a dime. I encourage you to share them with friends, provided no one changes or sells the files, and that you attribute them to me.
I do hope you’ll consider contributing an amount proportional to how much you like these songs. When you pay for music on this site, you declare yourself to be a patron of independent creative endeavors… and my supporter. That means a great deal, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Recommended price: $1.00
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Make-Over
Words: 09-29-1993
Music: 09-29-1993
What’s It All About?
This song is all about facing your flaws, admitting your mistakes and finding the strength to — defiantly — dare change to come.
I have been a massive fuck-up at certain points in my life. When things are lowest, I sometimes find myself experiencing an almost euphoric giddiness… as if the laugh-or-cry reflex tilts way, way too far to one side. That wackiness inspired the first line of this song.
Self-discovery is a common theme in my work, both music and prose. This song is one of my many personal standards.
The version presented here was recorded to a cassette four-track in my apartment in Long Beach, California in 1994 for a limited edition cassette mini-album called “Hundred Seller.” It often started my coffeehouse acoustic sets.
Lyrics:
Save me from laughter
That hides me from the pain I should feel
Find what I’m after
And learn just what it means to be real
I missed out, I was absent
On the day the test was revealed
Now I want, want to find out
If I’m too late to make it over
Soul: I think I have it
Buried down in that bottom drawer
Wait, now I remember
The day came when I stopped wanting more
I gave up, I was tired
Don’t you judge me; I did not see you there
Now I want, now all I want
Is to see if I can make it over
Hope is not eternal
That spring runs dry as often as it flows
A dialog, internal
To see myself and find out what I know
Support Independent Music
The media files on this page are provided for your enjoyment — you can listen, and even download the MP3 files, and not pay a dime. I encourage you to share them with friends, provided no one changes or sells the files, and that you attribute them to me.
I do hope you’ll consider contributing an amount proportional to how much you like these songs. When you pay for music on this site, you declare yourself to be a patron of independent creative endeavors… and my supporter. That means a great deal, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Recommended price: $1.00
Listen and Download
No New Memories
Words: 05-03 ~ 06 -1994
Music: 05-03 ~ 06 -1994
What’s It All About?
Years after losing touch with a woman who I loved dearly and who put me through a good deal of hell, I heard from a mutual friend that she wasn’t doing much differently by her husband. The knowledge created some mixed feelings… it dredged up all the stuff we had gone through, made me feel bad for the current guy, and made me very, very grateful that I wasn’t in his position any more.
I played this song a lot in my solo acoustic sets, and since it was one of those songs Gary Fitch insisted need a full band treatment, that’s what it got when we formed Running Erin with Erin Foster and Tony Dare.
The first version included here is a music video from the “mocumentary” Running Erin made with Not Afraid! Productions in 2000 or so. Then there’s a live version from Running Erin, and finally my original from the cassette four-track mini-album from 1994, “Hundred Seller.”
Lyrics:
When I hear tell of the things
That you do
I’m reminded of the days
Of me and you
You would think such things would fade
From my mind
Yet the games you played
Have grown clearer over time
I can hear your voice like I’m
Back there again
Sayin’ “There’s nothing there
That guy is just a friend”
It gets ’round to me
Your latest escapade
I just shake my head
I know, I’ve already played
I have felt the fear
The jealousy, the dread
I have trembled helplessly
Hangin’ by your thread
I remember this
That
And the other things
All the pain you put me though
Yeah, on and on
I could sing
I remember, I remember
Though I wish that I did not
Just one thing
To ease my mind
Just one thing have I got
I’m glad
That I have
No new memories of you
I feel sorry for the man who’s trapped
By you
I know he wonders what are your lies
And what is true
I really feel for him and I hope
That he breaks free
Still I can’t help thinkin’
“Better him than me”
Support Independent Music
The media files on this page are provided for your enjoyment — you can listen, and even download the MP3 files, and not pay a dime. I encourage you to share them with friends, provided no one changes or sells the files, and that you attribute them to me.
I do hope you’ll consider contributing an amount proportional to how much you like these songs. When you pay for music on this site, you declare yourself to be a patron of independent creative endeavors… and my supporter. That means a great deal, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Recommended price: $1.00
Listen and Download
Music Video:
MP3s:
No New Memories by Matthew Wayne Selznick w/ Running Erin (live) [4:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (597) No New Memories by Matthew Wayne Selznick [4:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (553)Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Words: 03-21-1989 with Theresa Copell
Music: 03-21-1989
What’s It All About?
Theresa Copell was my girlfriend for three or four years (depending on whether you count sequentially or comprehensively) in the late eighties. First girl I lived with, and my partner in a lot of, as they say, DIY independent creative endeavors, including my first actively gigging band, psychopathway.
She wrote a lot of poetry, some of which became songs. I saw a fragment in one of her notebooks, expanded it, and wrote the music. It became “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” a kind of word-picture of an elderly person — perhaps one with a difficult, colorful past — easing into death. Theresa was a little miffed at my interpretation and the final product, since it apparently didn’t match where she was going with the original.
Still, I think it’s a nice song, and it was a staple at nearly every one of my acoustic gigs for many years. By the way, it has nothing in common with the James Agee / Walker Evans book
The first version here was recorded live at a coffee house in Long Beach, California in the early nineties. No effects or overdubs.
Lyrics:
Laughter comes easy now
Not so hard to be alone
Not so bad, this empty room
Let us now praise famous men
Disappointed faces
That fall into my heavy gaze
They’ve been haunting me for days
The crimson summer room
Edge me slowly into night
Where I slip into ten high
Twilight had one had a name
Right or wrong, I’ve forgotten
Loud inside this empty room
Let us now praise famous men
I, I’m going traveling
I won’t be going far
Paradise waits behind closed eyes
Friends I haven’t seen in a long time
Resting patiently for me to find
Let us now praise famous men
For I can say I knew them when
Now I’m certain that I will again
Lying in this summer room
It’s so calm to be alone
Never thought I’d feel this way
Let us now praise famous men
Worried eyes keep the vigil
I hear their voices in a haze
But soon they will wash away
Support Independent Music
The media files on this page are provided for your enjoyment — you can listen, and even download the MP3 files, and not pay a dime. I encourage you to share them with friends, provided no one changes or sells the files, and that you attribute them to me.
I do hope you’ll consider contributing an amount proportional to how much you like these songs. When you pay for music on this site, you declare yourself to be a patron of independent creative endeavors… and my supporter. That means a great deal, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Recommended price: $1.00
Listen and Download
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by Matthew Wayne Selznick (live) [4:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (541)
