Lyrics and Music by Timothy Price

I finished recording a new original song on Sunday. Gabriela at Short Prose Blog, asked me if I was going to send her a poem, so I sent here Canonical Day, and told I had been working on the music. She wanted the song also, but didn’t say for what reason in her replies. Now that I have the computer I use for recording back, I checked to see where I was on the song. I had gotten the “Ticktock” sound for the clock created and that was it. I spent most of Sunday recording and assembling tracks. Tonight I added a little bit of synth to the recording after Marina mentioned she would probably add synthesizer. I had done a lead guitar track, but decided it detracted too much and took it out. The synth I added is subtle and it seems to work.

In case you don’t know what a Canonical Day is, it’s the liturgical hours of the day defined as follows:

Vigil – eighth hour of night: 2 a.m.
Matins – a later portion of Vigil, from 3 a.m. to dawn.
Lauds – dawn; approximately 5 a.m., but varies seasonally.
Prime – early morning, the first hour of daylight, approximately 6 a.m.
Terce – third hour, 9 a.m.
Sext – sixth hour, noon.
Nones – ninth hour, 3 p.m.
Vespers – sunset, approximately 6 p.m.
Compline – end of the day before retiring, approximately 7 p.m.

The poem came to me while I was listening to a lecture on theology. I was thinking, while monks get up at Vigil or Matins to pray, I get up at Matins to pee in a nightly Vigil after the kitties have stomped across my bladder. That gave me the idea to write a poem using the Canonical Hours based on a general day in a life. The poem has one or two Canonical Hours per verse, or perverse, depending on how one wants to look at it. After I got the verses down, I decided to add choruses and make a song out it.

I’m happy I took the time to record the song on Sunday as Gabriela has good intentions for both the poem and the song.

Canonical Day
By Timothy Price

Bombed at Vigil
kitties in the night
Matins listens
Owls
Hoot under moon’s light

Lauds wakens Dawn
Throw off covers
Spread colors
Reds, pinks, yellows
Tugs on sun lights blue skies

Primetime rise
Face another day
Lost in ironic phases
Teeth comb hair
Sad and pretty faces

[Chorus]
Sacred routines never fail
Hundreds, ten, thousand times
Begins each day a blessed right
Immortality of the whole

[RAP]
Terce it all coffee’s cold
Virtual whistles blow
Tap on keys, boxes packed,
Phone music
Plays on hold

Sext at last
Satisfies
Food fantasy
Peanut butter tofu chicken
Thirty minutes of ecstasy

Nones dear coffee’s cold
Eyelids weigh a tonne
Ninth hour sleepy time
For Heaven’s sake stay awake

[Chorus]
Sacred ways never fail
Hundreds, ten, thousand times
As each day goes by some insane
Immortality of the whole

Vapors rise at vespers
Dinners hot-cold served
Debates circles tables
World made right
For an instance

Compline pulls on covers
Sun tucked in welcomes night
Bedtime lost videos play
Medianoche greets another day

[Chorus]
Sacred darkness never fails
Hundreds, ten, thousand times
Conjures spirits Ether
Immortality of the whole

Spunk @ Compline

As a dry and dusty storm blew in this afternoon, the temperature dropped from 82ºF to 59ºF from one hour to the next. The sun managed to throw a slight bit of red on the clouds at the horizon as a last hurrah before slipping into to its sunny slumber.

The moon got a sepia tone from the thin layer of clouds catching what color they could from the setting sun.