Ruined Morning - Free Download!

“Ruined Morning” is the first track on the forthcoming Monday Machines CD. You can listen to the whole song below, and download it free here.



About this song:

One day last year, Allan was describing to me the non-stop din caused by the construction crews tearing up the road outside his apartment. He was trying to record guitar tracks, and was becoming very frustrated with the noise.

You probably can’t fight a bulldozer, so I thought about how he could turn it to his advantage. I decided it was really a wonderful opportunity to capture the ambience of dump trucks and jackhammers at close range from the comfort of home, so I suggested he record them.

A few days later, he was rudely awakened on a Monday morning by the sounds of large-scale asphalt demolition. Instead of being annoyed by it and letting it stop him from doing things, he smiled, and stuck some mics out the window, captured a couple of long wav files of the most clamorous clangings and rumblings, and had a wonderful time doing it. Suddenly the noise became creatively inspiring instead of negative. The actual noise was the same, but the context in which it existed was changed with a mere thought.

The recordings were vivid. You could almost see the bulldozers, and smell the noxious fumes from hot asphalt and diesel in the atmosphere when playing them back, and listening was instant inspiration for this song, which shows that—given the right context—noise can also be poetry and metaphor. The arrangement as it is on the album begins with my alarm clock going off and being thrown across the room in disgust. I think it is the most horrible sounding alarm clock in the whole world. So horrible, that I couldn’t resist sampling the vile distorted square wave tone, and using it as a melodic instrument in the choruses!

The title of this song, and our band name, both come from the names Allan gave that first set of files: “ruinedmorning.wav” and “mondaymachines.wav”.

Later, he went on to record a spontaneous improvisation with live jackhammers...but that’s the next track on the album...stay tuned.

And when life gives you noise, point a microphone at it!

Ruined Morning

On ruined morning: apocalypse kitchen.
Open the window—let the sounds of disaster in.
Telephone ringing: little alarm bells
Flaking the paint off. Colours slow down the spin.

And the jackhammer raindrops,
The crushing of clanging,
The shouting, it stills your tongue.
And then you remember,
The point, it has left you—
You cannot feel where it stung.

On ruined morning: pretentious collisions.
Cast iron railing measures angle grinder time.
Rude hesitations, arguing hard hats—
Convention of rubble: punishment defines the crime.

Careening concrete,
And clamorous boltings,
The sun-launched asphalt steam—
A cyclic upheaval,
A bulldozer nightmare,
But this is not a dream.

On ruined morning: the vertical highway
Terrifies no-one, for the sky is far from here.
The satellite photo, the thing you don't mention,
Peculiar direction—it is not to do with fear.

I wish you good luck—
See the quiver of arrows,
One of the points has your name.
A feedback collection,
A speaker excursion,
A cruel and deadly game.

On ruined morning: you recognise someone.
(All the faces look the same.)

© 2009 Cary Grace/Door 13 Music (BMI).