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The Art Teacher Cover- Rufus Wainwright

7/16/2020

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Love this Phillip Glass inspired piece by Rufus Wainwright. I don't have a Euphonium player handy, but I've got my lips. . .
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Chemical: I don't know what it is about you, I just can't get enough of the view. . .

7/14/2020

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A song about the ultimate longing.  The 10 year type.  The one that ties in other songs and melodies along the way.  Complete with Coastal Views, Wurlitzers, Stellar Coffee. . . you know, all the good things.  It's Chemical. . . 
Chemical- Words and Music by Alison Harris

You flew away, freeing my heart
I finally know, it isn’t the start of something beautiful


Oh what a love, oh what a day
Baby to think I was ready to give it all away


We’ll meet again, high as the stars
when you’re fighting to win, the need for a victory is Chemical


I fought for your heart, I fell down with ease
Scraped up my elbows and tore up my knees
Oh what a love, oh what a night
If you’re trying to find me I’ll be in the last dream on the right


Someday you’ll say, give me the key
When the lock has been rusted away and your heart gives in to Gravity


I don’t know what it is about you
I just can’t get enough of the view
Fell so hard, I got proof in the scars
This love is adrenaline, it’s Chemical


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Open- Old Song, New Demo

7/9/2020

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A new demo of a very old song- written about my first lover, still rings true. My parents met in a Balkan Folk Dance class and singing group and you can hear the drones and beautiful dissonance of Balkan music in this tune.
Where are you now my friend
You said you’d be here ’til the end
And what do you see now
You’re looking out from different ground


I’d like to see you
I want to reminisce
I’d like to feel you
Open
Open
Open up
Open
Open


Can we re-define our bliss
Is it you or myself that I miss
Where is that girl I used to know
Is she buried somewhere deep below


I’d like to see her
I want to dance again
Are you my Anchor
Are you my Lover
Or my Friend
Or another end
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Begin Again- Super Fresh Original Demo

7/7/2020

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This one just poured out of me this evening and I recorded it.  It's really the way I like to create most- from a deep place of processing and healing.  I hope it brings you some of the same or provides some kind of window through to a new space.
Ever since I was little
Livin in my own world
Shut down and belittled
Lonely Little Girl


It’s not that I wasn’t loved
Not that I wasn’t praised
But the bloodlines of trauma
Are the hell that I raised
Oh the hell that I raised


I was taught a hard lesson
about the nature of love
I learned to feel less than
I learned to scream and shove


and now that I’ve seen you
how I want to reach in
But I don’t want to lead you
To the damage within
Oh the damage within
 
Inst
 
(B)


So if I scream and shout
Will you still hear me out
And will you let me touch you
When the fire is out
When the fire is out


Cause it’s nice to be lonely
It’s so peaceful and quiet
And I can be just as dirty
And low down as I like


But then hunger sets in
Every inch of my skin
And I just want you to hold me
I just want to begin
Can we begin again?
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Blue is Fallin' - Hot Rize Lunch Break Cover by Alison Harris

7/6/2020

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Music is beautiful therapy for the blues.  Creativity takes the blues and turns those feelings of sadness, depression, anxiety-  into rejuvenating lightening to share with the world.  This song expresses that beautifully.  Thanks for taking a listen to my cover of Hot Rize's "Blue is Fallin'."
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"It's just as natural as the weather in this moody sky today" - Hejira, Joni Mitchell

7/4/2020

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To be honest, I've been self-isolating for awhile now.  As an only child, solitude feels like a natural state of being.  As I've stepped away from the public entertainment sphere in degrees over the years to balance the needs of motherhood, I discover a different voice, one that feels quieter but more true.   I remember using this measure of song and songwriting as a young writer- that if my writing and performance felt "True", I had achieved my goal of creative expression.  Joni Mitchell's writing is so many things- complex, universal, deeply personal and unique.  It was a pleasure to learn this song that feels like it captured the writer's truth and resonates deeply in so many hearts.  Please enjoy my piano/vocal arrangement of "Hejira" by Joni Mitchell.  
Hejira- Joni Mitchell

I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shocked love away
There's comfort in melancholy
When there's no need to explain
It's just as natural as the weather
In this moody sky today


In our possessive coupling
So much could not be expressed
So now I am returning to myself
These things that you and I suppressed
I see something of myself in everyone
Just at this moment of the world
As snow gathers like bolts of lace
Waltzing on a ballroom girl


You know it never has been easy
Whether you do or you do not resign
Whether you travel the breadth of extremities
Or stick to some straighter line
Now here's a man and a woman sitting on a rock
They're either going to thaw out or freeze
Listen, strains of Benny Goodman
Coming through' the snow and the pinewood trees


I'm porous with travel fever
But you know I'm so glad to be on my own
Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger
Can set up trembling in my bones


I know, no one's going to show me everything
We all come and go unknown
Each so deep and superficial
Between the forceps and the stone


Well, I looked at the granite markers
Those tributes to finality, to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken scratching for my immortality


In the church, they light the candles
And the wax rolls down like tears
There is the hope and the hopelessness
I've witnessed thirty years
We're only particles of change I know, I know
Orbiting around the sun
But how can I have that point of view
When I'm always bound and tied to someone
White flags of winter chimneys
Wave truce against the moon
In the mirrors of a modern bank
From the window of a hotel room
​


I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
Until love sucks me back that way

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    Alison Harris

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