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WeeklyBeats.com / Music / horatiuromantic's music / I won't be home for Xmas

I won't be home for Xmas

By horatiuromantic on November 3, 2024 11:56 pm

A beautiful but sad early Xmas ballad for you all! I wrote it today and performed it for the first time at the open mic at CPH Listening Room, on the amazing grand piano they have there, but the video and recording will be sent to me the next few days (and I might put it on youtube cause it was a good version) so I recorded a version for WB after coming back home.

Here is the live version AND this version with lyrics and visuals!

I have been reading a lot of scifi the past week. I read all 3 Three body problem books, plus another of short stories by the same Liu Cixin, then The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin, and started on some book by Arthur C Clarke. I am sure those are the heaviest influences for this song. Besides that I also played a bit of Rimworld, a scifi-ish survival game set on an ice world where temperatures reach -80C outside, and the only way to survive the cold is to build a house around a geothermal vent which spits out steam every few seconds. Meanwhile I've been sick the past three weeks with some kind of cough bug, and forced to stay inside to prevent it from spreading, so I almost felt like I was on a small world entirely comprised of my apartment, the hallway, the driveway, and Lidl. Ok that's unfair, I also went to the park, and I'm lucky to have such a nice park near my house. Anyway I am back to health today, which is why I went to the open mic, and it was a lovely way to get back on the scene!

I hope you enjoy the song!

Later I made a studio-only video version:

› Lyrics

› Bonus spoiler

Audio works licensed by author under:
Copyright All rights reserved

Nice piano playing and good mix of sad lyrics and surrealist (a jazz bar piano song that talks about relativistic speeds?)!

I can definitely see you playing this in a jazz club. Or maybe at a fancy hotel bar! Super cool, intensely moody =P

Who made you leave?? :C

lol 10 christmases is far too many presents.

I wonder what your piano chops and funny lyrics would sound like over some corny musical theater kid style piano. Was thinking of this girl. I am not well versed enough on the style to recommend the primary source for it but she channels it well.

https://youtube.com/shorts/vj0_3jN42Lk?si=xxqBbCSQDf-DbPt0
https://youtube.com/shorts/pceFyCpAkVw?si=1w1iQE157KbZCr4h

prophisee wrote:

lol 10 christmases is far too many presents.

I wonder what your piano chops and funny lyrics would sound like over some corny musical theater kid style piano. Was thinking of this girl. I am not well versed enough on the style to recommend the primary source for it but she channels it well.

https://youtube.com/shorts/vj0_3jN42Lk?si=xxqBbCSQDf-DbPt0
https://youtube.com/shorts/pceFyCpAkVw?si=1w1iQE157KbZCr4h

Ohh, my first reaction is shorts ew, but the reason is first of all how in general how the format is awful for creativity, just contributing data for big tech, chasing the dragon of the algo, and reducing attention span of people, and specifically for me I don't think I'm fast enough at singing and playing yet, to make good short-attn span content... at least not for improvising.

On the genre itself of corny musical theater I think I could enjoy doing it, but I feel like what I'm doing is already a version of that, just with my own weird style applied. I'm not sure what I could do to be more like that style except play and sing faster and with better chops. the girl seems to have a nice vocal technique. Or did I misunderstand your suggestion?

Kedbreak136 wrote:

Nice piano playing and good mix of sad lyrics and surrealist (a jazz bar piano song that talks about relativistic speeds?)!


haha thanks! I thought you would dig it, it almost has some kinda ref to AI. or at least hi-tech.

jegasus wrote:

I can definitely see you playing this in a jazz club. Or maybe at a fancy hotel bar! Super cool, intensely moody =P


I feel the room I played in qualifies as a jazz club, they occasionally play jazz. Thanks!

LeBernd wrote:

Who made you leave?? :C


the irresistible call of the distant unknown

"look for me in the stars"  heart
that piano sounds NICE

Yeah it probably boils down to something like “play and sing faster with better chops” but your chops are already good, just different chops. I think the theater sound does evoke some particular nostalgia that I don’t get from your current style, though

Word.

Science is just so emotionless, Xmas is a feeling and time is relative, so you'll simply have those 10 Xmasses a little faster.

Devieus wrote:

Science is just so emotionless, Xmas is a feeling and time is relative, so you'll simply have those 10 Xmasses a little faster.


lol @ science being emotionless. I recommend some scifi reading! And some clips of Carl Sagan or QI or there are many others who make science such a wonder and a joy.

thanks for listening!


jwh wrote:

"look for me in the stars"  heart
that piano sounds NICE


thank you!

Well, scientists are still human, and science communication is that much easier with jokes, but the relativity of spacetime is neither of those.

I always can pick out your tracks. You have a unique delivery. Very nice playing and lyrics. I've been reading a decent amount of Scifi this year. Road Side picnic and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep were my favorite reads of the year. Impressed you can get through the 3 Body Problem books in a week. I am such a slow reader tongue

Thank you very much for this nice song. I was amused and impressed by your humor and your pianoskills.

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