Archive for the ‘My Tunes’ Category

“We’re Doing Fine”

Posted: December 26, 2021 in My Tunes, Poetry
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The faith I have keeps falling apart
The pain we share I will turn into art.
Every day is difficult from the start
Feelings neglected soon buried in the heart.

People are struggling but we’re doing fine.
In our million dollar mansions

Drinking imported wine.
People keep struggling but we’re doing fine.

Can’t remember the last free moment
No crisis, no chore, no one to comment.
Starting from this path no choice would be different
All my efforts dreams and cries so easily misspent

People are starving but we’re doing fine.
It’s the way it is and has always been,

So many suffer at Christmas Time.
People keep starving but we’re doing fine.

Help who you can but so many in need
While men trample where you plant your seed.
To pay for survival you sacrifice and bleed
Only to smother from the consolidation of greed.

People are dying but we’re doing fine.
But the uneducated and the lazy,

They are ruining my Christmas Time.
People keep dying but we’re doing fine.

The faith I have keeps falling apart
The pain we share I will turn into art.
Every day is difficult from the start
Feelings neglected soon buried in the heart.

Trap

Posted: November 9, 2021 in My Tunes, Poetry
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When you think you are making the right decision
Everybody you connect with is on your side.
Well, buckle up your seat belt and hold onto your cap
You don’t know it, but you just walked into a trap.

It seems like you are making your own choices
Everything is going down just like you planned.
Suddenly you hear a loud and powerful snap
Now you know it, but you just walked into a trap.

A trap you can’t get out of
A trap you couldn’t see
A trap of your own making
Trapped for eternity.

Still struggling and squirming trying to believe
Yellin’ ‘I don’t understand’, makes you look like a fool.
All bundled up nice with a box with and pretty wrap
However you say it, you’re stuck in a trap.

Lashing out at anyone that comes even close.
You keep pushing yourself further and further away.
The box is smashed and you’re hanging from a strap
However you play it, you’re stuck in a trap.

A trap of your own making  

Trapped for eternity. 

“Pray for ME”

Posted: November 5, 2021 in My Tunes, Poetry
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I hate to throw all this morbidity stuff at you but it is a subject at hand. Physically I am fine, yet I grow older and watch my friends and family members get sick, or die.

In some ways it is a burden taking care of your health – eating well – exercising – meditation and the rest. Not for the effort it requires – BECAUSE IT REQUIRES A LOT OF EFFORT!!!! But you will inevitably see many of your friends and loved ones not make it to the same finish line. Sometimes the monotony alone is daunting after y e a r s and Y E A R S.

We all know we will die. My songs have reflected this for over 40 years. I think the earlier we realize the truth in this and treat our friends and family (and all humanity) with that simple understanding it will change our perspective in life. One unexpected generous comment or gesture from a stranger can spin positive echoes throughout decades. Hate works up-hill. Generosity works down. Sorry, I am out of wine.

Here is a song I wrote tonight. As a summary, I am an athiest. OK Hold On. I was ready to post my song but when I type in the word athiest —————- It highlights the word as if it is misspelled! I tried it twice thinking I mistyped the word. WTF. Google athiest and you get the definition of the word and other links….. https://www.google.com/search?q=atheist&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS927US927&oq=athiest&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i10i433j0i10j0i10i433l4j46i10j0i10l2.4531j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

So, athiest is not a word in Word Press. I am sure this is a pretty standard method of suppression. We are many but have no voice. #athiestisaword

But, I digress. Here are lyrics for “Pray for ME” If you are just tuning in to this blog my name is Michael. My wife’s name is Ellen. Most of my songs are by ME. Mike and Ellen.

“Pray For ME“

I value your friendship
More than life itself.
You put pride and decency
Before anything else.

Laughing like hyenas
When no one else gets the joke.
Always high on the real thing
When fools kept talking coke.

What will you do when I am gone?
I hope you will be singing our favorite song.
Stay as long as you want, say what you want to say
But I’m asking you not to pray.

It’s the irony in things
Only you could see.
If one of us has to go first
I hope to whatever god it’s me.

There is value in hope
Struggles through each day.
But there is nothing you can do
To make this go away.

What will you do when I am gone?
I hope you will sing our favorite song.
Stay as long as you want, say what you want to say
But I’m asking you not to pray.

Love’s not an easy thing
Time to Let You Go.
Understand that I love you
More than you’ll ever know.

Magic Potions

Posted: April 5, 2021 in My Tunes, Opinions and Observations, Poetry
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Yesterday I overheard a conversation
Between your god and mine.
He said, “I’m not sure where you are going with this,
But I like your design”.

She must have thought that was pretty funny
Cause this was her reply:
“Can’t imagine letting them last forever
So they all had to die”.

“Is that why you closed the gates to Paradise,
To test their devotion”?
“Not at all. Just replaced Salvation with
Worthless Magic Potions”.

Magic Potions became the prize
Magic Potions kept by the wise
Magic Potions from broken math
Magic Potions choosing the path

This went on and on for a very long time.
Quizzing one another.
I just couldn’t help thinking, “what do you expect…..
From sister and brother”?

Magic Potions became the prize
Magic Potions Kept by the wise
Magic Potions from broken math
Magic Potions choosing the path

Yesterday I overheard a conversation
Between your god and mine.
SHe said, “I’m not sure where you are going with this
But it’s better than mine”.

Music for “Peanut Butter Hill”

Posted: February 19, 2021 in family, My Tunes
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The path to Peanut Butter Hill in Lindner Park covered in snow 2021

This is a song I co-wrote with a friend of mine from Xenia, Ohio. I sent him the basic tracks via the Internet and he uploaded to his home studio. Scott Hadley from “The Little Hippies” then sang the vocals and helped with arrangement to make this song click. Then he added keyboard parts and harmony tracks and sent individual tracks back to me……

To help me with this song I asked a friend and The Merchants of Death band-mate Mike Wheeler to play bass guitar. He is in Dayton and got the tracks back to me faster than I could have driven there and back! He has a way of finding grooves within the melody of a song that ties it all together.

I wrote “Peanut Butter Hill” on 1-21-2021 as I was walking through the woods near our home. I take walks in the same park almost daily now that I am retired. We spent a lot of time here when our kids were growing up. Walking past a steep hill in the park next to a creek I thought I should write a song about this park. (Well, what about?) As I walked I started thinking that this song is not about me but about the kids that tried climbing the bare-mud side of the hill. A fence stood at the top where the real path was and at the bottom of the hill was a creek that remained mostly dry. Soon the melody hit me and I knew this was a song about peanut butter hill.

Decades ago I challenged my kids and all the neighborhood friends to climb up the hill – but they could not use their hands! When they failed and said it could not be done, I put my hands in my pockets and climbed to the top. So did my daughter TK. The hill is not what it was back then, but I think we were the only ones to meet the challenge, but everyone had fun trying!

“Peanut Butter Hill”

And the hits just keep on coming

Posted: February 15, 2021 in My Tunes, projects
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I am working on writing a new song with some friends over the Internet. Recording final tracks now and will release “Peanut Butter Hill” hopefully later this month. 2021 is off to a good start!

Eye of the Storm

Posted: January 27, 2021 in My Tunes, projects
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My 6th CD, “The Eye of the Storm” has been released through CD Baby. I am closer to 70 years old than not, so I do not use Spottify, iTunes, Deezer and the rest. If you use these services you will probably know how to search for an artist. Look for the above title or Michael S Kennedy to make the search easier! Looking forward to 2021!

Eye of a Storm

Posted: January 4, 2021 in My Tunes, projects
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Smiling because 2020 is over!

I just released my newest project on CD Baby. This is my sixth album release over the years.

Very soon the Album/CD titled: “Eye of a Storm” will be available on Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok, Instagram, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Deezer, Pandora, and about 150 other streaming services globally. Search for Michael S Kennedy and with a bunch of luck it will appear on the list. The songs and CD are cheaper on CD Baby so you can also save a little cash there.

I think I settled on 18 songs since my last release. I post almost everything on this blog first so if you have been here a few times you may have heard many of these tracks. I really like a lot of these new songs and they include some of the best lyrics I have written. In the year we have had, there were few opportunities for my friends to add vocals or instruments to some of my songs as in the past. As a result, all of these songs were written, performed, recorded and mixed by me. While it is a lot of work and I really wish someone would do it for me, it is also a lot of fun and I am proud to look back at this collection. I hope you try a few out because they are all different in their own right.

Happy new Year!

MIDIMike

Michael S. Kennedy

Holiday Tradition Past

Posted: December 11, 2020 in family, Holiday, Midi Series, My Tunes, projects
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Holidays are fun with creative people.

I often mention my talented wife and children sprinkled within posts over the years. When the girls were very young we made Christmas and the holidays a creative fest whenever possible. From pumpkin carving parties with over 200 pumpkins, costumes and haunted houses, we put our own flair into everything. We avoided the commercial and traditional.

Each year we would send our many friends a hand-made original Christmas ‘Card’. We would start two months before Christmas to imagine, design and create a unique holiday greeting from our entire family. Many are still hung up or placed on mantels to this day. It is hard to describe so you can get an idea of the projects. One time we made small cloth trees decorated in style with a hook on them so you could hang them as an ornament. Another year we took clear glass ornamental globes and other shaped bobbles and poured paint inside making them sparkle with bright colors and/or glitter on the inside of the glass.

As a musician I built up a small home recording studio over the years. In the lyrics we reference “7 tracks and SMPTE”. I had a digital recorder back then but advanced as it was at the time it only had eight tracks, and one of them you used to record a clock signal so it would sync with the MIDI instruments I had controlled by a hardware sequencer (RECORDING WAS A LOT HARDER IN THOSE DAYS!!!). Every few years I managed to work in a family musical project. Here are two audio recordings we sent as that year’s ‘card’.

This tradition really became a thing and people looked forward to getting their next card, knowing it would be unlike any other they would receive that year, or ever again.

Here is my family recording two Christmas carols for our annual card project. One is a traditional cover of a song you are familiar with. The other is our version of a classic. Even if you aren’t ‘all about Christmas’ and everything, I think you will find this cute and maybe hilarious at the same time.

I wish you all well and hope we can keep lost loved ones close to our hearts and friends and family in our thoughts.

MIDIMIKE

The Kennedy’s carol
The Kennedy’s Original 12 Days

What You Want is now a song

Posted: November 10, 2020 in My Tunes
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After smoothing out the timing and lyrics to match the mood I was after for this new song, I wrote a melody that seems to fit pretty well.

I squeezed some of the lyrics as I mentioned and cleaned up the instrumental glitches (a technical term for anything that isn’t right) and added a few parts to the instrumental verison I posted earlier.

Minor changes go on for a long time in the final tracking stage. A lot of it will not be used at all and some will be low in volume so as not to hear distinctly. But similar to color splashes added to the face in a painting, it can really bring out the rest of the ‘image’.

What You Want:

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