Pre-pre-ramble: If you do not want to know the details, history, and sound of the song, skip the pre-ramble.

Pre-ramble: This is a song I was commissioned to write… actually, it’s a philosophy project. The assignment our group chose was to cover the question “Do vices have virtues, and do virtues have vices?” The group decided to make a video, a photo essay, and a song… (obviously I got the song handed over to me). I believe the lyrics would be best read with a description of the song, so… here!

It’s just piano and voice, and at the beginning, it’s in C major, very happy-sounding, with kind of a music box feel to it. The first three lines are also sung in major, but when I get to “I never thought…” it turns minor and drops an octave. Now we’re at middle C! it retains the music box feel, with a little more of a throbbing pulse supplied by the left hand. The 2nd and 3rd verses are sung there, then a 16-measure piano break takes over. At the end of that, the left hand goes down another octave, and by now it’s more rhythmic than melodic, though it still has melodic touches. The 4th verse is sung to this. In the 5th verse, the left hand returns back to where it was in the 2nd verse, but maintains the rhythmic feel. After another piano break (32 measures), the sixth verse is sung to double the first piano break. The first two lines are sung in the same octave as the 5th verse, then the last two lines are sung an octave higher, where we began.

The idea behind the piano part is to suggest an innocent beginning, then a slow but eventually absolute corruption, and at the end, the main character wishes for her innocence again (indicated by the return to higher keys.)

Now that you, oh faithful readers, have suffered through all that, on with the lyrics! I’m normally a stickler for meter, but I realize that this song does not strictly conform to any meter. This is because it works better with the melody of the song.

The Virtue of Vices

I met you, I found you in my books

And so fell, enraptured by your looks

You took me, a wonderful surprise

I never thought that you’d be full of lies

I love you, I love the way you sing

Your blue eyes can rid my suffering

The sweet smell of weed upon your hair

Is all I want, knowing that you’re there.

Next I know, you say you love my soul

And break in, beg me o make you whole

Your lust for love to satisfy

Destroys my youth and I begin to die

Watch me gaze upon your stoner’s face

And sadly know I can’t replace

The raging fire in my mind

The hate, the love you forced my soul to find

I can’t see the child in me I’ve lost

Out at sea, battered, beaten, tossed

Unless I embrace the high you give

That blinds me to the painful way I live

I have killed so you can save me

I gave my all for one more pure breath

But I know now, you have failed me

All innocence has turned into my death.

Post-ramble: I got an A on the philosophy project (performed it yesterday), and I didn’t screw up a t all. My first performance for a group over five went well.