Tag: lyrics

Afterword to Odes to My Triceratops

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, EscrituraLeave a comment

My first memory is of being four years old, lying in a hospital bed when my parents brought me a gift: a toy triceratops. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world.

I came up with the original story for Odes to My Triceratops during one of my wildest periods of creation, back in spring and summer of 2021. I don’t know how they came to be, but I suddenly had a young songwriter, a blind and illiterate girl, and their friend, who was inexplicably a sentient triceratops. It could have ended as a gag. I didn’t understand then why this tight-knit, strange trio of friends seemed to matter so much to me to the extent that the moment I had those elements, I knew I had to tell their story. For my first try, I didn’t give them the effort they deserved. That first batch of lyrics turned out to be mostly throwaways; they served mostly as compost for the versions that ended up as the actual Odes to My Triceratops songs.

The third of four albums ends with William apparently killing himself. I wrote and produced five songs afterwards, but that happened at the same time as the Udio debacle, when the music industry pretty much forced Udio to block downloads, rendering it useless, so I didn’t continue with the fourth album’s contents. Although I play the guitar, I’m not a musician. I know what I want to hear, but I can’t access a band, so the AI service that allowed me to play around with generated music was a godsend. I wouldn’t have been able to create these songs otherwise.

The videos below are the three complete albums I produced, containing all the lyrics of the first three parts of the story.

Creating these songs was a huge endeavour that took away from other responsibilities. I was also dealing with a stressful job that I ultimately had to quit for health reasons. But I couldn’t get some of these songs out of my mind. Moments from them would bubble up randomly, and I found myself singing internally to their lyrics. More importantly, though, I felt a responsibility to William, Claire, and Lorenzo to finish their story properly.

This story isn’t a joke to me. It has taken me years to fully understand psychologically why it felt so important to process this story to the end. I was a high-functioning autistic kid dealing with co-morbid Pure O OCD, who spent his childhood wandering alone, lost in daydreams, writing and drawing. I was in absolute communion with the mysterious, blind, illiterate female presence inside me who showed me such beautiful dreams. But some of the writings and drawings from that era also contained stuff that a child shouldn’t know: mayhem, violence, troublesome sexual imagery. I didn’t even question it at the time, but some of the things that came naturally to me would have made A Clockwork Orange blush. It would take time for me to understand that people don’t have to deal regularly with intense intrusive imagery of the violent and sexual variety, including impulses like pushing hot food to my eyes, shoving knives into my eyes (I don’t know what’s with OCD and eyes), licking random disgusting shit from the gutters, and plenty more stuff I don’t want to say. It’s not like I could keep them caged at all times; in moments when I was too exhausted to control them, I ended up dropping objects (a coffee on a customer, a valuable hard drive) right after had intrusive thoughts of doing so. I’ve never gotten a driver’s license because I don’t want to deal with intrusive thoughts of veering into oncoming traffic or accelerating towards a wall. I’ve never held babies because I’d have to deal with intrusive thoughts of dropping them on their heads. I knew I had a monster inside me: a dark, primordial force of chaos that couldn’t be tamed, and that would remind me of its inescapable presence whenever it pleased.

When I was seven, my mother wanted to free up my room to have a do-over child, so they put me as an unwanted guest in my disabled older brother’s room. The connection with my subconscious was lost. I no longer had silence nor space of my own. I couldn’t even sleep properly until I was 18 due to the noise. Looking back, my childhood was killed at the moment I was taken away forcefully from my proper environment and discarded as a child with his own needs. I’ve spent my adult years searching for what was lost, resuming the conversation with the generative force in my dark room that showed me such awe-inspiring, wild, magnificent dreams. Although I’m now familiar with her again, the trauma made her feral, strange. None of us are the same as we used to be when we wandered around lost in daydreams.

Odes to My Triceratops is the story of my youth. My unhinged generative, dreamlike period. My love for the blind, illiterate girl who showed me there was beauty in this world. My troublesome friendship with a reckless, violent, sexual monster. My war against the monster during my teenage years, when, lost in dissociative states, I felt I was a thin layer of conscious mind under siege by monstrous ancient instincts I didn’t want to identify with nor could understand. My yearning for the missing love of my life, the sole real person in the world. My suicide attempt. The integration of the monster. Finding the girl only to find out she had changed. Devoting myself to that mysterious presence in the dark room deep down.

Somehow, Odes to My Triceratops became my personal mythology that encompasses all the forces I contain. No wonder I’ve returned to it at least in my mind since its conception in 2021, and why I remain haunted by many of its songs.

Now, the five-year cycle of song lyrics is complete. Suno, the currently-leading online service for music generation, will release its new model, supposedly better than all previous ones and made in concert with the music industry, whenever it arrives. I intend to render all my remaining lyrics of the fourth album into proper songs, then release the fourth and final album on YouTube. Barely anyone has listened to them, but it doesn’t really matter. I know who I’m doing this for, and I don’t need to look up.

William Griffin (Poetry)

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Driving through a desert town,
I pass a roadside bar.
Board out front: “Open mic night.”
I pull over, grab my guitar.

Handful of locals at the tables.
Young couple at the counter.
Stage in the corner, a list the host holds.
I give my name when asked.

Wooden stool under one light,
Microphone in front of me.

I made these songs for you,
So you can sing along
From deep down somewhere
In a dark room.

A burning heart inside your throat.
Bold and brave like a triceratops.

The last chord rings.
Warm light on my face,
My hands still on the strings.
People talk, glasses clink.
I don’t know what they think,
And I don’t look up.

Up the mountain in that old garage,
Gasoline smell, rust and decay,
Where the valley ran to the edge of sight,
Two people heard me play.

Some say we’re here for a reason,
And yours is clear to see:
A bird like you was born to sing.

THE END

I Know Where You Are (Poetry)

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My phone keeps buzzing on the passenger seat,
Eager to yell at me for failing to show up.
The men at work, they never knew who I was,
Or that I won’t be coming back.

I woke up in some dark room
Full of trash, bottles, cigarette butts.
Dunno how I got there, whose bed it was.
Didn’t see a clock, couldn’t tell the time.
My head throbbed, my stomach burned.
Had to piss like a racehorse.
What did I swallow? Who did I fuck?
Who the hell was I?

My hands are trembling on the wheel,
My breath fogging the cold glass.
This rusting, sputtering wreck of a car
Always takes three turns to start.

A voicemail from my mother.
She got sober enough to recall
That “the Javernick girl” had called
Two or three years ago
To find out if I was alive.
Now I know where you are,
Or where you were the last time
You gave my mother your name.

I grabbed the guitar and ran
With nothing but the clothes on my back,
That stink of sweat and smoke and sex.
Left everything else behind.

Driving through the endless night.
The road’s empty, the sky black.
No stars, no moon, no signs.
Nothing but the white line.

A phantom smell of old gasoline
From the yard up the mountains.
On the porch next door to mine,
Your face, your fire hair, your milk eyes.

Locked in my room for a year,
Then vanished like a ghost.
You wanted to know if I was alive,
And I was already gone.

The sun comes up like a sore.
My skin’s clammy, my tongue thick.
I roll the window down,
Stick my head out into the wind.

Pull over at a gas station, fill the tank.
Beard’s a mess. Eyes bloodshot.
I need to wash, need to eat,
Need to sleep, but can’t stop.
Buy coffee, aspirin, cigarettes.
Clerk looks at me like I’m a threat.

My teeth hurt, my jaw clenches.
Bugs crawl under my skin.

I put a knife in Lorenzo’s neck.
Buried his body in the woods.
I told you he must have gone,
And you knew it was a lie.

Driving through flatlands, cornfields,
Under a sky too big to grasp.
No mountains, no trees, no landmarks.
Just road and road and endless road.

Car’s making a weird noise.
Smoke’s coming from the hood.
Heat rises, burns my face.
I don’t know how to fix this.

No one around.
No help in sight.
Just me and you,
And this guitar.

I used to be dead.
Now I know where you are.

Bury My Balls and Burn My Body (Poetry)

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The sky has opened, the seas are raging,
The moon is shattered, the sun has died.
But here I am, and here I’ll stay,
Until the last of the fires fade away.

Tail of a crocodile, feet of a dragon,
Face of a demon, heart of a murderer.
Teeth sharp and jagged,
Night-eyes glowing green.
I’ve forgotten the taste of love.
My only pleasure’s in the kill.

Rex the Wrecker, oh, he’s the shit down the hatch.
The fiend of the tow truck and wrecking ball.
A legend in this town, a king without a crown.
He lived hard, fucked hard, died hard.
Left a trail of blood, tears, and cum.
“Fuck you all, I don’t wanna be buried.
Bury my balls, that’s all,
Then burn my body.”

Rex fucked a cactus, snorted gunpowder.
He tore himself a new hole just to piss off his mother.
Ripped a thousand girls’ cherries by accident,
Knocked them up like bowling pins.
The only one who ain’t furious with him is me,
‘Cause I’m the one who put him in the ground.
But I’m also the one who can’t wait to see
When he wakes up and comes back around.

You know who I am, what I’m made of.
I can make it rain diamonds or gold,
Or burn everything to the ground.
I’m the monster in the closet,
The beast in your bed.
I’m the devil in your head
Telling you to kill yourself.
No mercy, no pity, no love.
I’m a cold hard machine
With a heart of stone.

I’m where the garbage trucks roll,
The junkies shoot, the hookers stroll.
Where the blood spills, the sirens wail,
The neon burns, the rats crawl.
I’m the one who owns this shithole,
Every alley, every bar.
Every street corner, every gutter,
Every motel, every car.
You’re a visitor, a trespasser;
Don’t pretend that you belong.
Drinking, smoking, fighting, fucking;
I’ll be here after you’re gone.

Fear me, hate me.
Try to stop me if you dare.
You can’t kill me, you can’t hurt me.
Can’t even touch me anywhere.
I’m the alpha and the omega,
The beginning and the end.
There’s no such thing as God,
Unless you count me.

I’m the one who’ll bury your balls
And burn your body when you’re dead.
Until then, fuck you all, fuck this world.
I’ll have some fun before it ends.

Suno demo (not remotely final version):

Daniel (Poetry)

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She lives on the third floor.
Her key’s on a chain with a skull.
She threw her coat on a chair.
Cozy place full of stuff I’d never seen.

Leafy plants in pots, blooming flowers.
Records and books on the shelves.
Magazines, sketches, photos
Of people I don’t know
Who smile in her life.
A cat ran past my feet.

She moved here from Sweden three years ago.
Works at a library, sorts books.
Plays guitar in a band with her friends.
Likes to travel, but she’s scared of flying.
Parents still there, call her every week.
She said she loves them but she had to leave.

Smart, funny, pretty, foreign.
Unlike anyone I’d ever been with.
She knows her own mind, has her own plans.
She doesn’t need me for anything.

She put her hand on my thigh.
I ran my fingers through her hair.
Her lips were soft, her tongue sweet.
I played around with her tits.

Red bra, lace panties, socks with stripes.
She kissed me down my neck and chest.
Candles on the nightstand, dim light.
Smelled like flowers and clean sheets.

Her skin was smooth and warm,
Her breath hot and fast.
We made love on her bed
Like it meant something.

She held me afterwards,
Her arm around my chest.
I felt her heart beating.
“You can stay if you want, Daniel.”
Insects crawled on my skin.
I tossed her arm off me.
“Get the fuck away,
You trashy bitch.”

I fumbled for my clothes,
Did my belt on the stairs.
No sound followed me down
But her calling that name again.

The Greatest Song I Can’t Remember (Poetry)

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Yesterday I listened to the greatest song.
It sounds like bullshit, but it’s true.
So good, it made me cry.
So good, I wanted to die.

This tiny venue downtown,
Kind of place where the walls sweat
And the floors stick to your shoes.
Place was packed full of hipsters and weirdos
Drinking cheap beer, smoking shitty weed.
I was so high, I could hardly see.
I had walked in alone, feeling like shit,
Looking for a distraction, looking for a fix.

The lights dimmed, the crowd hushed.
Then three dudes walked onto the stage,
Dressed in black suits and ties.
They looked like gangsters from a movie.

I can’t remember what the hell they played.
I can’t remember a single word they sang.
I remember the feeling of being lifted,
Of being free and alive.

There’s a girl in every bar,
And a bar on every street.
There’s a song in every heart,
But mine’s stuck on repeat.

I was a kid, I had a dream.
I wanted to make music that mattered.
But life happened, shit happened.
I lost my way, lost my friends,
Lost my love, lost myself.
Now I just work and drink and fuck,
And write crap songs no one hears.
What’s the point? Who cares?
But last night, for a while,
I felt that old spark again.

This chick, tall and blonde, Nordic type,
She swayed to the music with her eyes closed,
She sang along to the words I didn’t know.
Those tits were out of this world.

I met her outside after the show.
A chick from Sweden who speaks English
With a cute accent and a wicked smile.
She asked me what I thought of the band.
I told her they were the best thing I’d ever heard.
She laughed, said she felt the same.

I drove her to a diner, got us burgers.
We looked at each other like it meant something.
She said my eyes are like the moon, cold and dead.
She asked me if I was okay, I said I was fine.
I asked if she wanted to fuck, she said not tonight.
I guess it was the worst date she’s had in a while.

I drove her back to her place.
She kissed me on the cheek, said thanks.
Said she wanted to see me again.
I went yeah, sure, why not.

So beautiful, it made me cry.
So powerful, it made me hard.
So amazing, it made me forget
Who I was, where I was, what I was.
I can’t hum a single note,
I can’t recall a single chord.
It’s gone like it never happened,
Like I dreamed it all.

Rex the Wrecker (Poetry)

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Driving my shitbox through the neon haze,
Looking for a place to drown my head.
Loud and grimy dive bar called “The Black Hole.”
I walk in like I belong: a rockabilly rebel,
A lone wolf in a thrift-store leather jacket,
White shirt, tight jeans, shit-kicking boots.

A mix of fuckups, sluts, and thugs
Smoking, sweating, spilling beer.
Band plays cover shit on a tiny stage,
Some punk-garage junk, I don’t care.
I see a girl with black hair and black lipstick,
Too much makeup, tits spilling out.
She’s leaning on the bar, drinking vodka shots.
I slide next to her, order a whiskey.
I tell her my name’s Eddie, I’m in sales,
Here on business, just passing through.

Music’s too loud to talk, so we dance.
She grinds on me, I grab her ass.
We sweat and kiss to the beat.
She tastes like ash and cheap perfume.
She asks me if I wanna fuck.
I say yeah, of course I do.

We stumble out, my car’s parked nearby.
I drive us to a motel on the edge of town.
Fumble with the key, the door’s sticky.
Bed smells like old sex and cigarettes.
I rip off her clothes, she pulls down my jeans.
I fuck her hard on that stained mattress.
Grunt and moan, claw and bite,
Reach the peak, come and die.

There’s a girl with an awesome ass
And a tight-fitting skirt,
Whose hips sway when she sways,
Whose tits sway when she sways.
Sometimes the front side of her is exposed
From underneath that shirt,
And if you were smart, you’d stop and stare
At her awesome ass and awesome tits.

I spot this girl at the bar, she’s a hot mess.
Black leather pants, red corset, fishnet top.
Tattoos on her arms, piercings on her face.
Hair’s bleached blonde, eyes are dead.
I tell her my name’s Eddie, I’m in sales,
And I’m just passing through this hell.
I buy her drinks, she gulps them fast.
Says she wants my dick inside her.

We fuck on the bed, we fuck on the floor.
She asks me if I have any coke.
I say I have some pills, she swallows them.
We fuck in the shower, water’s cold.

This brunette has a tattoo of a snake on her tit.
Her thick thighs shine in the bar’s light.
As we dance, she says a name I don’t retain.
I say mine’s Daniel, an architecture student.
I tell her I needed a break from school.
She says she needs a break from her boyfriend.

Bass thumping through my chest,
Sweat dripping down my face.
The girl’s a blur of hair and skin.
I kiss her neck, she bites my ear.
I take her to my car. Windows fog up fast.
Her legs are apart, ass high like a prize.

I’m a fucking wrecking ball
With a head full of holes.
I should’ve died years ago,
But I’m still kicking.
I need a bottle of whiskey,
A pack of smokes,
A dirty motel room,
And a night without dreams.

A girl with blue hair and a nose ring
Sits next to me, smiles, asks my name.
I’m Daniel the architect, I design buildings.
I design bridges, too, over troubled waters.
I tell her I love her style, her green eyes,
The way she licks her cherry-colored lips.

I’m Michael the traveler, I’ve seen the world.
I’m Joe the divorced man, looking for fun.
I’m whoever you want me to be, baby,
As long as you spread your legs.
I don’t give a shit about your name,
Or age or dreams or story.
You’re just another hole to fill
And leave sore and sorry.

I’ve got a dick, you got a cunt,
That’s how it works in this dump.
We’re all alone in the crowd.
I’m gonna drink ’til I drop.
I’m gonna fuck ’til I rot.

I get into a fight with some bikers
Outside the bar, over nothing.
Fists fly, blood spills, teeth break.
I get a black eye, a cut lip.

Call me Rex the Wrecker, I knock shit down.
I’m a tow-truck driver in a filthy town.
I got a leather jacket and a hungry eye,
And a pocket full of pills and lies.
I don’t have a dream, I have a bottle.
I don’t have a heart, I have a dick.
I like to drink and fight and fuck,
And then forget about it all.

I’ve got friends in low places.
I know who kills for fun.
I’m not afraid of anything,
‘Cause I’m already dead.
I don’t love you, I don’t like you,
I don’t even know your name.
I’m gonna pump you full of cum,
Then dump you like a waste.

Horns on my head, hell in my throat.
A tail that swings, claws that scratch.
A roar that can raise the dead.
An antediluvian wrecking beast
Rampaging through this worthless world,
Stomping on the dance floor until dawn.
Hey, triceratops boy,
Where are you heading to now?

Songwriting Is for Idiots (Poetry)

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Lock the door, drop the boots,
Wash the shit off my hands.
The world can fuck off for a while:
I got a bottle and a guitar.

Songwriting’s for idiots, yeah, it is.
I should be fucking sleeping,
But here I am, an asshole with a drink,
Trying to make sense of shit.
Sit on the bed, grab the neck,
Play a few chords, slur some words.
No one here will give a shit
About my stories or my songs.

Start singing some nonsense rhymes
About trash and trucks and loneliness.
Maybe I’ll sing about how drunk I am,
How my fingers fumble on the frets.
Maybe throw in a dead dinosaur
And a girl with milk-white eyes.

Songwriting is for idiots,
But I like to sing.
No one here to hear me,
No one here to judge me.
Just me and my guitar,
And a bottle of gin.

I keep on playing and singing
‘Cause it makes me feel something,
Even if it’s just pain or anger or shame,
Or the ghost of a memory,
Or a face I can’t forget.

I sing about Lorenzo, my best friend,
Who’s dead and buried somewhere far away.
I sing about Claire, the love of my life,
Who left me without a word or a trace.

Songwriting is for idiots
Who dig up what they buried
Just to complain about the smell,
Who play the same four chords
Until this room is the hideout
And we’re all stupid kids again.

Songwriting is for idiots
Who can’t let go,
Who can’t move on,
Who are too scared to live
And too cowardly to die.

I used to be a boy.
Now I lift other people’s shit
Until my hands turn white.
I used to have a dino who listened
And a girl who sang.
Now I have four walls, a bottle,
And a toilet that won’t flush.

I’m just a fool with a guitar
And a bunch of half-assed songs
That no one will ever hear.
But I like to sing, so fuck it.
I like to sing, even if it’s dumb.
I like to sing, even if it hurts.

I wish I could leave William in this room
With the songs and the dead.
Let someone else wear the boots
And walk out that door.
But there’s no one else.
This is all I’ve got.

You Stay Eighteen (Poetry)

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I’m on the curb, bent over a split bag of trash,
When a knife goes into my ribs, or maybe my heart.
It’s another vision of you bleeding in the dirt,
Your red hair spread over mud and grass.

Your parents are dead.
You can’t see, you can’t read.
You don’t know where you’re going.
You strayed into the road,
Blind to a truck roaring down.

I drive back to my room soon after dawn.
I lock the door, sit on the edge of the bed.
I grab my guitar, but my hands are shaking.

I see you splayed on the road.
Body crumpled, bones snapped.
Blood mixing with rain.
Tire tracks across your torn dress.

I got a bottle of gin in the car,
And the heater’s busted.
City lights on the fogged glass.
They’re like stars, but colder.

You got into a stranger’s car.
He promised to take you somewhere safe.
He tied you up, he raped you.
He buried you alive.

I’ve buried a body in the woods
With my own hands and my own blood.
I know the smell of fresh-turned earth.
I know the silence when it is done.

I see a familiar splash of red in the blur.
A girl down the block is wearing a scarf
The color of your hair.

In a truck stop sink, I wash up as best I can.
I pull on cleaner clothes, spray deodorant.
I drive my shitbox to the worst bar I know,
And sit at a sticky table with a drink.

I remember the smell of your hair
When you leaned on my shoulder.
I remember the taste of your mouth
When we kissed on your porch.
I remember the warmth of your hand
When we walked in the park.
I remember the light in your voice
When you sang along to my songs.
Those are the things I have left of you,
The only things that keep me alive.

Your body slammed into a windshield.
Glass and blood sprayed the dark.

I wake up sweating, my chest seized up.
I check my phone: no new voicemails.
I wonder if anyone would care
If I didn’t wake up again.

I don’t know where you are.
I don’t know if you’re alive.
I don’t know anything.
I just see you dying
Every day,
Every night.

Your face, pale and rotting.
Your eyes, empty sockets.

I called my mother, told her I’m fine.
Her voice was slurred; she didn’t say much.
I hung up, turned my phone off.
I don’t want to talk to anyone.

The sound of you humming along
As I strummed my guitar
On a clear summer evening
When the world was young.

You stay eighteen.
I get older every day.

Mammalian Machine (Poetry)

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The city’s a mammal breathing in the dark,
A vast, pulsing, throbbing, sweating,
Bleeding, shitting, pissing, fucking,
Screaming, crying, laughing, dying beast
That doesn’t care about me or anyone,
That just is, and does, and will be.
We’re specks of dirt on its metal skin,
Drops of blood in its concrete veins.

You people, I see your traces every night:
You’re the ones who throw out half-eaten pizza,
Leftover Chinese, expired milk, moldy cheese.
You’re the ones who discard broken toys,
Torn clothes, worn-out shoes, cracked phones.
You’re the ones who dump dirty tissues,
Used condoms, bloody tampons, piss-stained sheets.
You’re the ones who leave photos of smiling faces,
Drawings of rainbows, love letters, suicide notes.

The truck’s another beast, made of metal and oil,
With a hungry mouth, a crushing throat,
And a roaring, smoking ass.
It roams the city at night, devouring its shit,
Turning it into mush, then spitting it out
Onto a stinking mountain of waste,
Where birds and rats and maggots feed.

I’m a beast too, a parasite on the beast,
A machine of flesh and blood and bone and nerve
That runs on garbage and music and memories,
That breaks down and heals and breaks down again.
My heart beats like the engines of a spaceship
Launching itself into space.

This guy I work with sold me his old shitbox
For a couple hundred bucks, said it runs fine.
Engine coughs, starter groans, heater’s a joke.
This piece of junk should’ve been scrapped.

I like to cruise through the veins
Of this mammalian machine
That runs on trash and pain.
The pizza joints, the strip clubs,
The ruins where junkies shoot up,
The alleys where whores sell their flesh.

The streets are covered in shit
Left by dogs and pigeons and drunks.
All the kids are scared and angry.
The adults are just old kids with jobs.

I used to think I was different.
I thought I had a purpose, a meaning.
But I’m just another piece of trash
Thrown out into the world
To fester and decay.
I try to keep my head down.
I try to make it through the day
Without killing someone or myself.