Category Archives: My Music

A Little Song and Clip To Go With This Year’s Strategy

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been thinking a lot about what we can do this time around to protect ourselves against another repeat performance of either the 2000 or 2004 elections. We were tricked both times in different subtle ways, and it is my hope that whoever might be planning to tamper with this year’s elections will realize that it’s a bad idea to do so with everyone watching.
I’ve had this little anthem (lullaby version) in my head this last week, and I thought I’d share it with you.
It’s based on some things I learned from my own archived news footage from the 2004 election about strange things going on with the actual vote count in relation to the exit polls. The Bushies tried to tell us it was the exit polls that were incorrect. But that didn’t make sense then, and it makes less sense now.
This clip is a re-edit from a clip within the documentary from Dorothy Fadiman’s Stealing America – which was released a few months ago across the country. (The movie uses a lot of footage from my and thePete‘s video archive from the 2004 election.)

(Video – 11 MB)

From Judy (to Wolf Blitzer): “Well, we’re trying to figure all this out right now Wolf. Apparently, what has happened is that the Associated Press, they were feeding numbers into us, and then suddenly, those numbers changed.”
High Res version of this video clip – 230 MB (Sorry there is no hi-res version of either song recording.)
This year, let’s stay up and watch until we know the votes have been counted correctly — which, we know from the polls, could only mean a huge win for Obama.
Here’s a sorta “traditional” version of the song:
Staying Up All Night (campfire version)
Here’s a lullaby version of it for my biggest fan 🙂
Here are the words (roughly, depending on version):
Stayin up all night
stayin up all night
and you’ll be there with me
and it’ll be alright
you can call us crazy
and we hope they’re right
until the race is called
I’m stayin up all night
Stayin up all night
Stayin up all night
and we’ll all watchin
cause we’ve seen the light
what happened last time
it just wasn’t right
until the race is called
we’ll be staying up all night
and you can call us crazy
and we hope you’re right
until the race is called
we’ll be stayin up all night
RE: Plan B
Well, if they try to tell us that Obama has lost in “another close race,” I say we demand a recount and hit the streets – Ukranian style.
So it might be a good idea to try to take Wednesday off work if you can, to:
1) rest up after being up late Tuesday night
and
2) be available for a protest, if we need to have one
So again – the main plan is to just watch and win 🙂 – which should be easy enough. But if the bullshit hits the fan in the middle of the night again, let’s be ready to deal with it head on Wednesday morning (Plan B) – by emailing phoning our representatives endlessly – and, hittin the streets!

A-Z Index of My Songs

Hey sorry this took so long to pull together. I’ve had complaints from people who actually took the time to go to my music site, to try to find a song they liked, to no avail. Doh!
So here it is, a little A-Z Index — of all my published songs to date, that I know about — and it will just live on the lisarein.com homepage from now on.
Hope to see you at the show tomorrow night 🙂
lisa

Had A Great First Show – My Sister’s Awesome

Hey the Farmer’s Market show was great! (post 1 about it – post 2 about it.
Looking forward to the
show on June 10!
And the new song went over very well! It was as gratifying as I had hoped 🙂
Sierra and I really kicked ass on the few songs we sang together. I looking forward to working out a whole set of songs with her.
I’m going through the video to pick out a nice clip or two to show you.
Special thanks to gregory for helping me set up my sound!

New Song: Last Digression

MP3
WAV
Last Digression
(written around 1997)
Words and Music by Lisa Rein
Guitar and vocals by Lisa Rein
In my mind
In my head
I can’t seem to find
an answer to my questions
I can see them
I can hear in their direction
through the darkness
and the madness
and the emptyness
getting closer to
a vacuum-filled unconsciousness
a false impression
of my very last digression
by my side
in your bed
you will never find
the secret to your laughter
and you don’t seem to mind
that you cannot find an answer
to the darkness and the madness
ad the emptyness
getting closer to the memory
of your consciousness
a fool’s procession towards your very last
digression
a confession in my mind
to your lighter side
that’s hiding all the answers
second chances
heavy breathers breathing one last breath
surrounded
confounded by the sounding of a warning
a confession
vivisection of your memories
and they seduce me
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.

All My Political Songs in one place

I’m trying to make political tunes that are also just fun to sing. Here
are all of them with quick links:
1. Improving

http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/002681.php
2. James Brown Died On Christmas

http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/002679.php
3. Democracy

http://www.lisarein.com/democracy.html
4. In the Spirit

5. James and Marybeth (about copyright law and how the public is losing their
end of the bargain)
written to James H. Billington (Librarian of Congress) and Marybeth Peters
(Register of Copyrights)

http://www.lisarein.com/jamesandmarybeth.html
6. Here’s myself and Audrey Howard in Golden Gate Park doing a cover of a
song Green Day’s Billy Armstrong covering the song by
Aaron Elliot and PHGP called “Life During Wartime”:

http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/001298.php

New Song: Fuel Funeral

Glad to finally get this up. (I was waiting to finish the video for it…but I don’t want to hold things up any more.)
Fuel Funeral

Direct link to MP3

This song is about war profiteers who knowingly exchange the blood of Iraqis and US Troops for profit, in that they fund the destruction of the country so they can profit on its reconstruction.

It’s also about how we all line up behind these scumbags and keep driving our SUV’s — and are effectively trading in the future of our children for convenience in the short term.

This song was inspired by the Bill Moyer’s NOW program from November 14, 2003, Cash and Carry, which detailed the direct connections between the Shrub Administration and the main two or three companies that are profiting directly from the Iraqi reconstruction.

Vocals by Lisa Rein – Music by Gregory Howe
Lyrics by Lisa Rein and Gregory Howe.

Lyrics

We go anywhere we wanna go
Suburban assault vehicles
The calling day we all seem to know
Comes speeding at us now head on
Come on down to the fuel funeral
The pyre’s high and it’s burning down
We’re staring at the fuel funeral
Say a prayer and then throw in your cup
They tell you all that you wanna know
The roads are paved with a heart of gold
They turn you out on the inside
Kill your world as they come alive
Come on down to the Fuel Funeral
Cause you ain’t got too much more to lose
There’s only trouble and obstacles
They’re all waiting for you for you

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.

New Song: Improving

This song is about the crazy idea that any kind of “democracy” the U.S. brought to Iraq could be worth the death of a single Iraqi person.
It’s like someone saying:
“Ok here’s the plan. First, we bomb all your public water and power systems, then we don’t actually rebuild them, so a lot of you are going to die off from that.
Next, your brother and aunt die when us or the insurgents bomb them by mistake.
Next, you get democracy!
See!? It’s a bargain!.”
MP3 (2 MB) — WAV source (14 MB)
“Improving”
Words and Music By Lisa Rein
Cut off the power lines my friend
Shut off the water too
The benefits will never end
When we’re done bringing this to you
We’re just improving
improving
improving
improving
Kill off your family one by one
but we’ll give you some rights when we’re all done
yeah
It’s such a drag
but it’s not us!
If you can tough it out
You’ll make it.
improving
improving
improving
improving
repeat
(As recorded into my laptop using Audio Recorder, as always…) This track is available under a
Creative Commons Attribution License

New Song: James Brown Died On Christmas

This is a little ditty that manifested itself over the holidays.
The MP3 and source wav file are available under a
Creative Commons Attribution License.
Music and Lyrics by Lisa Rein
James Brown died on christmas
James Brown died on christmas
They found him in the morning
It came without a warning
It seems like only last december
I was looking up his police record
To settle a trivial family battle
And I don’t mean no disrespect
And I’m not saying anything at all
Cause nothing’s ever written on the wall
But I hope that he’s in a better place
In a better place
It was the first thing I heard on christmas morning
I saw it on the tele
It was a holiday of tragedy and tyranny
When only a few days later
We were hanging a dictator
As a symbol of democracy
And I’m not saying anything
Cause no one’s even listening anymore
And there’s not much I really know for sure
But I know that he’s in a better place
In a better place

New Song: Democracy

Just released a brand new song: Democracy.
This song comes with its own page to help explain the lyrics.
It’s about what has become our sorry excuse for a democracy, and thinking about it for five minutes, in the context of the world at large.
I recorded the guitar and vocals for this on my mac laptop, using Audio Recorder. (I did mix it in protools, but I didn’t do anything special that would have required protools.)
Hope you like it. I’ve made all the source files available for remix, and it’s all under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
I decided to allow commercial use of the work. Let’s see how far it can get!