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One Ring

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One Ring: The Concept

One Ring is a small concept album I intended to create. The project has been stalled for some time now, but I'm not quite ready to abandon it.

The initial idea of the album came from the stunning success of a prior album, Merry Quispmas, recorded live into a 4 track at Quake Studios. Musical blandishment for Quispmas was provided by a number of talented performers, including Band in a Box. Most of the rest of the group will no doubt wish to remain nameless.

What will the album sound like? The original thought was along the lines of a very bad '70s prog-rock band (1.1M MP3), but that didn't last long. A more acoustic approach (491K MP3) seems more likely.

Technical Information

The MP3s were tracked with Impulse Tracker. Effects were added with Cool Edit and encoded to MP3 via BladeEnc. Most of the "Prog Rock" samples were ripped from the Scream Tracker files Dust to Dust, by Leviathan and Ultrasubmarine by Mental Floss. The cool choir samples at the beginning are from Emu's 500 Bank SoundFont Library, converted using AWave. The "Acoustic" samples are all from the Emu sound font library.

No actual musicians were used in the making of these files.

One Ring: The Lyrics

(c) David Cuny, 1999. Apologies to T.S. Eliot, J.R.R. Tolkien and Al Stewart.

End of the Age

Instrumental Demo (1.52M MP3)

The Darkness has begun; there will be no dawn
The Ships have all departed, and the magic is gone
It's a sign of the end and the fall of many things,
A change in the tide; who knows what it brings?
A chapter that's closed with the turn of a page
We're standing at the end of the age

Give Me The Words

You've got farsight - it's like some secret power
and a rock locked high in a stone cold tower
searching the heavens with an anxious eye
but can you really tell the truth from a lie?
It's not the message; it's how it's said
It's not the words, but how they're read
I'll give you pictures without a frame
and faces with no name.

Give me the words, and I'll use them
twist them around, and confuse them
until they're nothing close to what was meant:
cruel and mean, or sick and bent.

What you see isn't really what you get.
Are you such a fool not to have learned your lesson yet?
Gazing deep into your crystal ball
I'll show you everything and nothing at all.

It's not the message; it's how it's said
Give me the chance to play with your head
I'll sit and whisper into your ear
and find a reason for everything that you fear.

Give me the words, and I'll use them
twist them around, and confuse them
What you hear isn't what was meant
I killed the messenger before the letter was sent

Cold Light of Morning

Instrumental Fragment (from intro) (512K MP3)

All things fail
All things fade away
All things fail
That's just the way of the world

I know
the hand I play
is from cards that I've been dealt
And you know
that the tears I cry
come from pain that's deeply felt

It's a cold, cold light of morning
that steals the dreams of night
and sweeps away my illusions
in it's bright, unblinking light

All things fail
All things fade away
All things fail
That's just the way of the world

I know
that time's not on my side
And you know
that I lack the strength
to stand against the tide

The brave, bright new tomorrow
now seems faded like the sun
with the story that's unfinished
and all our dreams all left undone

And I do not hope to see it
as dreams fade into the cold, harsh light of day
No, I dare not hope to hope
for I have seen my own hour pass away -

All things fail
All things fade away
All things fail
Well, that's just the way of the world

The voices call from all about
and are echoing this song
But I hope that they are wrong;
they sing:

In the end - all things fail
In the end - all hope fades
Like all things of this world
all good things are unmade

With the road stretched into the distance
in the harsh, new light of dawn
but the road goes ever on

All things fail
All things fade away
All things fail
That's just the way of the world

End of the Age (reprise)

The Darkness has ended; though the ships are all gone
New life is stirring in the brightness of dawn
Much has been ended, still their memory remains
A turn in the tide has brought a sudden sea change.
A new chapter's started; and at the start of the age
The future's before us like an unwritten page


Site last updated 09-21-2003