Moryork // "A Song Begins"
Sadfam at Moryork concert: August 10! Alex Wand's "A Song Begins" release: today!
Join us at Moryork for our Song A Day celebration concert! Performances by sunmunsun, iris gladdening, katshu, Brittish, Rufus Dumont, calpurnia’s mom, visitation, marshweed, wooden/apple/heart, jackypie, jennjenn, Dancermancer, and more. Sadfam July participants: there are still a few slots so let us know if you’d like to play a song too!
On this day, sadfam records is releasing A Song Begins by Song a Day co-founder, Alex Wand (Rufus Dumont). It’s a spoken-word piece set to synth-resonated ocean waves. Available on our bandcamp and streaming platforms. A note from Alex below:
"A Song Begins" is my manifesto on songwriting and music composition. A song comes from a place that is experiential and connected to mysterious forces that are much wider than sound, but that include sound too. Every time we write a song, we engage with these forces, and that is such a privilege to have as a musician and as a human.
I'm happy to be releasing this on sadfam records as I made it in the context of this community and because this piece reflects our broad conception of “song” — encompassing everything from field recordings to electronic pieces to folk tunes.
The cover artwork is by my friend Sarah Butler, who is an artist and dancer — I'm a big fan of her work. I've always loved her embroidered photographs, so I commissioned her to make the artwork in that style. The picture is of the beach in Santa Cruz where I took the field recording heard in the piece.
During the pandemic, Sarah and I were exchanging letters when Sarah was living on a farm in the Midwest. After I wrote this manifesto, I sent it to her by mail. She was one of the first people to read it, and she wrote me a letter back that was encouraging. It was part of the reason why I've decided to release it. Thank you for listening!
A Song Begins
A song begins before it’s played, before it’s written.
A song begins as longing.
As a furnace in the gut.
As emotions erupting, disturbing, unsettling.
A song begins with oxygen.
Begins when one learns to breathe with one’s bowels.
A song begins before the voice.
A song requires no voice, no guitar.
A song begins as water before it reaches a container,
As the fabric of mud.
A song begins as longing.
As a longing to love something that cannot ever love you back in the same way.
A song begins as molecules indifferent to their longevity.
A song is diminished when made fixed as in a recording or repeatable performance.
But songs survive all such forms.
A song begins and ends not in sound, not in chords, not in lyrics.
A song begins as longing.
Songs are not expressions of songwriters.
A songwriter is lost the minute they think they’ve ever written a song.
Yet, a song can be trapped into a cage of self-expression.
The song’s power is then rendered at the service of aesthetics and ego.
But the song always survives these imprisonments.
And even trapped in these forms, a song can seem unbridled.
The act of observation is where a song begins.
A song’s greatest expression happens alongside the act of being penetrated by mystery,
By listening with one’s body, with all the senses at once.
A song’s greatest expression happens when one sheds the fear of loss.
Songs are saviors and destroyers of ecosystems.
A song begins as an unstoppable force.
A song ends as an unstoppable force.
-Alex Wand
If you’d like to contribute to the maintenance and development of the Song A Day website, please consider donating here ($5-10 suggested per session) and/or subscribing to our co-op label here. Up next from sadfam records: “Revery” by Theresa Thor!