ericprincessdragon

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  • Acaso

    Acaso

    From the March album – originally written Fall 2023

    “Acaso” came together during one of the most emotionally intensive periods of my songwriting life, built around a piece of music I’d been playing with for years. It was 2014 when I returned to the states after over a year of traveling abroad – this was a piece I’d begun playing on the road but finalized and decided to dedicate to the San Gabriel Valley suburb where I grew up. I called it “Temple City Theme.” Here’s a recording of the piece I did with my friend Stephen Reed (of the brilliant band Xinxin) on drums:

    The Songwriting Challenge

    “Acaso” was written in fall 2023 during the first round of a new songwriting group led by Tim Bulster (of Tiller of The Moon – check out The Songwriting Mind episode with this talented musician). We committed to eight weeks of writing a song per week, recording demos and sharing them with the group. This became the first of four challenges we’d complete between fall 2023 and winter 2024.

    Here’s “Acaso” as originally submitted to the song-a-week group:

    (Original demo recording)

    Back in 2017, my childhood home in Temple City had been sold and my parents separated at long last. The anchor that had tethered a broken, unhappy family was finally cut loose.

    “Acaso” became my reflection on that time and process – from a free life on the road to returning “home” to serve my family through this transition and see them through to the other side. Eventually leaving to find new homes where the search and quest to claim spaces for ourselves continues.

    Here’s the version released with the collection of songs “March” performed live in my living room.

    Video:


    The unknowns been good to me
    Much better friend than certainty
    I traveled long and I traveled far
    Found myself across the world
    Now I got a call I been waiting for
    It’s time to go back home

    Hey it’s okay
    To finish what you started
    It’s run its course
    I know we’re all exhausted
    Don’t fret we’ll be alright
    This days been coming all our lives
    No more tears no more fights
    Just step through the door
    Gotta go back home
    For the last time

    At home I got a role to play
    Our folks are going their separate ways
    It got so bad they can’t speak
    Their voices move through me
    It ain’t fun but it’s gotta get done
    If we’re gonna move on

    All packed up and I’m the last one out
    Last chord needing cutting was this house
    Where we were born where we grew old
    What stood between us and the cold
    This broken home is all we’ve ever known
    But it’s time we close the door
    We’re gonna find new homes

    Every video, every recording and every day is a fresh experiment. From the album “March 2024” available on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms. “March 2024” is a collection of songs that reflect my life and travels. Recorded across various states and continents, the sounds and images for the album cover a span of six years and 11,000 miles.
    https://linktr.ee/ericprincessdragon

  • Gutter Baby

    In all my travels, never have I met a gnarlier bunch of traveling folks than the “gutter punks.” I once got off a bus in New Orleans and immediately got heckled by one across the street yelling, “Hippie! Give me money!” Hitchhiking around the U.S. and Canada, I met quite a few – jamming, sleeping and hanging around on the streets, trying to catch lifts along the way.

    Inspired by people I met on the street around Montreal, Humboldt & Mendocino counties, this song is an amalgamation of stories I’ve heard from these folks, some of my own experiences traveling, and some inspiration for a happy ending from someone who made it out from the streets into a “normal” life.

    My first demo for this song was completed in January 2024 as part of a song-a-week challenge. Though most of it was written then, some of the lines go back to a dusty notebook I filled around 2014-2015 when I was hitchhiking around the states real heavy. I was looking for notes for another song when I found these words. I scrapped most of what I had written then, but the core idea was there – the story of a “Gutter Baby.”

    Just a baby
    Fourteen years old
    Scared to go back home
    Take your chances
    Hiding in the streets
    And learning to survive
    Starting a new life as
    A gutter baby

    Find some punks on the street
    Who take you under their wing
    They get you high and teach you to get by and you start traveling
    In every new town new trouble with the same struggles
    You graduate from the bottle to the pipe and to the needle
    Oh gutter baby
    Gutter baby

    Gutter baby
    Rabid on the street
    How did the world forsake you
    Gutter baby
    They got you hooked
    Hooked on poison hooked on violence
    Hooked on crime giving every reason
    For them to jack you up
    Gutter baby

    The cops know just who to fuck with when they spot you on their beat
    They’ll take any excuse to pluck you off the street
    They don’t care whether they lock you up or drive you to the edge of their town
    And they know that no ones gonna trip if they beat the shit out of
    A gutter baby
    Gutter baby

    Not a baby
    You’re growing old
    With dreams of your own
    Done with trouble
    All the drugs and drama
    All the death and all the trauma

    You leave it in the past
    You’re cleaning up your act
    You’re going to be a dad
    Now you have yourself a chance
    To give a love you never had
    A baby
    Your baby

    It ain’t easy to build when you’ve been beaten down
    And thought you’d be the next young punk to end up in the ground
    You’ve been cast aside abused and brutalized and didn’t know why
    But all the pain and trouble means nothing when you look in those eyes
    And see no struggle
    No fear
    No struggle
    Just a baby